Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds
by Nate Yoshida
Summary: An on-going epic told through the perspective of the X-Men's Emma Frost. Co-starring Beast and the Stepford Cuckoos.
1. Part One

**Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds**  
By Nate Yoshida

PART 1

_As I switched the lights on in the office, I heard two clicks. It was the sound of a pistol being cocked, familiar to anyone who has watched a single Hollywood film. It was just a young man, maybe in his mid-twenties, with black-rimmed glasses and short blonde hair. He wasn't exactly intimidating, with his five-foot stature and uncleaned shirt-and-tie. He was either an IT professional or a depressed stock broker. Either way, he was one angry individual._

_"Miss Emma Frost," he said slowly, pretentiously trying to intimidate me with an aura that was probably based on some movie scene he must've seen as a child._

_"That would be me, dear," I responded as though he were one of my students, "may I help you?" He raised the gun slightly higher, as if to make it clearer to me that he was serious. Frankly, I was trying quite hard not to break out into a fit of laughter._

_"Let me tell you a story, Miss Frost," he continued, taking a seat across from me in the dark top-floor office. His back was to the door, and he seemed to think this was a well-calculated move to prevent me from running, as if that would even cross my mind. Calmly, I sat down behind the desk facing him, and leaned back._

_"Sure, darling," I responded calmly, "you wouldn't mind if I pour myself a glass of wine, would you?"_

_"I'm Billy Doran, does the name ring a bell?"_

_"Not really," I answered as I poured the red wine into my tall glass. The name somehow suited his goofy look, and I was hoping the alcohol might make it easier to keep a straight face through the rest of this._

_"Well my father worked for your father, Winston Frost, for forty years. Then in a wave of so-called down-sizing, he lost his job without so much as a decent explanation."_

_"My father did many things that I'm not all that proud of, Billy. What exactly does this have to do with the little pistol you're aiming at me right now? In case you haven't noticed, I'm not my father. We do look quite different, last time I checked a mirror."_

_"I was born in South Eastern Boston, when my family struggled just to get by. In high school, my best friend, Doug, got me into computers. Doug came from an upper-class New England family, but he chose to hang around with us down East. I never could've afforded the hobby, but he got me into it, and I made a fortune in the mid-90's all thanks to him."_

_"And you think I'm somehow responsible for the IT crash?"_

_"No, Miss Frost," Billy answered impatiently, "I don't blame anyone for that, because that's not the point. That's the thing with people like you, all you see is the money. The point is that Doug is dead now. He was the greatest thing to happen to me, and you killed him!"_

_"Pardon me, dear?"_

_"He was killed last night in New York City by the terrorist attack committed by yourself and Doctor McCoy. So I've come to avenge his death."_

_"I'm sorry, Billy, but you're missing the big picture," I placed my glass on the desk, and looked Billy in the eye, "let me tell you a story. My story."_

  
  
To the masses, I'm just Emma Grace Frost, C.E.O. of the manufacturing conglomerate, Frost International. An impersonal untouchable figure seen at the signings of corporate mergers. But to those who know me, I'm Miss Frost, headmistress of the New Massachusetts Academy operating in my own home town of Boston, Massachusetts.

I discovered in my teens that I could read minds as effortlessly as I could listen to the radio. Mutants, homosapien superior, whatever the term you choose, I was born different. It can be a curse if you let it be one, but everything in life is just what you make it. For me, it's a weapon. As are beauty, intelligence, money, and anything else that we may possess.

Early yesterday morning, I made my way down to Doctor Henry McCoy's laboratory in the basement level of the New Massachusetts Academy. He too was born with genetic gifts: an unusually strong athletic build, and more recently, a coat of short bluish fur and a cat-like facial appearance, only retaining a human body structure. His appearance and physical abilities have earned him the nickname of Beast. Ironically, however, Henry was always more fascinated with academics than physical activities. He became a world-renowned geneticist many years ago, and now he works as my head researcher, in the Frost International Genetic Research Department. We also happen to share an interest in literature and the high arts.

Reading Henry's mind is another issue altogether. It's a lot like listening a nuclear-physics text book being read aloud on the radio. I avoid doing it unless it becomes an absolute necessity.

And then there's my secondary mutation. As if it hadn't taken enough out of me in my teens to accustom myself to living as a telepath, I developed the odd ability to transform my body into a virtually indestructible organic-diamond state. It's really quite aesthetic, if I may say, but it prevents me from using my telepathic abilities whenever I assume the form, and we really don't have a clear understanding of it yet. All that will change soon enough though, unless my research department has a strong desire for a pay cut.

For the time being, I had assigned Henry to work on researching the physical mechanics of my secondary mutation, just to see if he could find anything in the chemical process that would be of any significance. Unfortunately, he seemed to have given up his bathing habits in the process. In fact, I don't recall having seen him leave his laboratory in months.

"I've concluded that switching into your diamond form makes you virtually brain-dead," Henry informed me with a grin. "Seriously though, Emma, significant portions of your brain are actually deprived of oxygen by the chemical compound that allows your skin to transform into an organic-diamond state."

"So that could be the reason I can't use my telepathy in that form?"

"Maybe. But with some of the data I've gathered, we might also be a step closer to understanding the brain itself."

"Well I'll be a step closer to utter insanity if you don't take a shower soon, Henry."

"I'm serious. Even I have to admit that there's a lot we -- and by we, I mean the scientific community -- still don't understand about the brain. Human or mutant. But the way your brain seems to adjust itself when you switch between skin and diamond is showing details that we've never been able to test before."

"Well I'm serious too, Henry," I responded with a light pat on his shoulder. "I'm going to that big ass-kissing fest in Washington tonight. If you could practice some personal hygiene again, you might pass as my date."

"Ass-kissing fest?"

"The big party in Washington, D.C. Some of the world's most powerful people will be there to kiss each other's asses, hoping to move up the social food chain."

  
  
Two hours later, I stood leaning against the wooden teacher's desk, facing a group of telepathic students to whom I was about to deliver a lecture as their first period class on a Monday morning. I had been awake since five in the morning, and I was well aware of the fact that they would rather be anywhere but in class listening to me speak.

Discovering my genetic predisposition wasn't the only unusual side-effect of the hormonally-charged teenage years for me. I also developed a passion for teaching, but I admit that it wasn't some altruistic outlook about helping future generations. It was just something that I enjoyed, and I found that it came rather naturally to me.

"Even today, there are still only a handful of truly successful telepaths in the world. Does anyone know why?" I asked to begin an in-class discussion.

"Because they got college degrees in Business Admin and became overpaid C.E.O.'s?" Esme responded aloud, with a tactlessness that even I was proud of. She was one of the blonde identical quintuplets that the other students have come to call the Stepford Cuckoos. They were ahead of the pack since the beginning. They were intelligent, beautiful, blonde, and above-average telepaths, especially when all five of them were together. They're really quite reminiscent of myself according to my colleagues, multiplied by five.

"That's correct, Esme dear," I responded, "but in more general terms, it's because they all knew how to make use of everything they've got. Not just telepathy or any other single attribute, but anything that could become useful. For instance, a poor attempt at being clever during an in-class discussion can be made into an example as the lead-in for a long Monday morning lecture. In this case, the fact that I used my telepathy to climb to the top of the established system."

"But we already know how to use our telepathy, Miss Frost," Sophie pointed out, "and there never seems to be any good reason to use anything else if we wanted something done." Sophie was another of the Cuckoos. She was less rebellious in nature than Esme, but she seemed to be developing into something of a leader among her sisters.

"That's true, darling, you do know how to use your telepathy, but there's always more than one road you can take to reach any destination. Whenever you limit yourself to a single method, you'll just sell yourself short. You have to remember that the simple things you take for granted, like beauty, intelligence and strength, can all be tools in your arsenal as well."

Taking a telepathic glance around the room, through most of the students' relatively untrained minds, felt like a trip down memory lane. They were all self-centered, self-conscious, and they thought they already knew everything about bloody everything. In other words, they were just teenagers. I do remember what it was like to be there, but I didn't really need to remember since I could actually relive it through them. That might be one of the reasons I enjoy this job. Of course, my job isn't to actually become like them again; my job is to make them into someone like me.

  
  
A few hours later, Henry and I walked past the school's lobby on our way to my personal jet. The five Stepford Cuckoos, and an Asian boy with spiky black hair next to Sophie, came to see us out. Henry, with his long hair combed back to emphasize those uniquely elegant feline features, spoke in an almost fatherly manner with the girls. It was an undeniably charming sight.

"Doctor McCoy, this is Eddy," Sophie introduced the boy next to her. "He's my boyfriend."

"Well it's a pleasure," Henry shook Eddy's hand. He then turned to look at Sophie with a look of hesitation. "Which one of--"

"I'm Sophie," she answered before he could complete the question.

"Ahh, sorry. I still have trouble telling the five of you apart."

"That's my excuse too, Doc," Eddy remarked with a grin. "Just between us, I'm really dating all five of 'em now." Sophie elbowed him in the side, "I'm kidding."

"Let's get moving, Henry," I interrupted.

"We'll watch over the school, Miss Frost," the five girls announced in unison.

  
  
At a quarter to eight, our plane arrived in D.C. We then traveled three blocks by limo to reach the site of the night's festivities. The media gathered around the gates like a swarm of insects charging toward bright lights. It was a high-rise office building, and the main floor had been decorated for the event with a red carpet and gold decorations on the walls. It was really quite reminiscent of the Hellfire Club's New York branch headquarters, where I worked a few years ago, except the building itself seemed more modern.

As we made our way toward the glass-framed entrance of the building, a reporter stared at Henry with a look of disapproval, as if the so-called normalcy of her own appearance made her somehow superior to the world-renowned doctor, despite her piss-poor education. Without so much as an ounce of effort, I telepathically implanted a feeling of ecstasy into her mind, causing a public embarrassment that she'll never forget.

"That woman over there seems to be getting a little excited about your handsome features," I told Henry quietly.

Once inside the building's lobby, we were guided to the room where the party would take place. We were surrounded by some of the world's most respected and admired figures. In the eyes of the common people, they might be likened to the Greek gods and goddesses, the idols of our time. But to me, they were just people who landed a lucky hand. They dropped involuntarily into their lives no differently than a New York City cab driver who knows the fastest routes to every location in town but forgot how to bathe. Once you let these people intimidate you, you've instantly given up any hope of becoming their equal or superior.

We were immediately served drinks and refreshments. In contrast to the doctor's appearance in his lab, he really carried himself quite well in this setting. It was the same suit I had seen him wearing to the opera with the Stepford Cuckoos two weeks ago. Glancing across the room, we saw the President of the United States himself, surrounded by a group of Secret Service Agents who were coordinated with others positioned at different corners of the room.

Within a minute, we were approached by a well-dressed man in his forties, who carried himself well enough to pass for someone much younger. He looked familiar.

"Ian?" I greeted him with a slightly awkward uncertainty. It was a face I couldn't possibly forget. Ian Kendall, the teacher I had a crush on back in my mid-teens. If it weren't for his encouragement and vote of confidence, I probably wouldn't have become a teacher myself. I hadn't found myself at such a loss of wit and confidence in years. It was like I involuntarily reverted to the way I was when I first knew Ian, a self that Henry had never even met, so he knew Ian wasn't just another business associate of mine from recent years.

"Emma! It's so great to see you like this," he answered enthusiastically.

"Henry, this is Ian Kendall, my teacher back in Snow Valley," I was still trying hard to regain the usual colder confidence that Henry was more accustomed to seeing me carry in public.

"Doctor Henry McCoy?" Ian quickly filled in the blanks. "I've read a lot about your career. It's an honor to meet you." Henry shook his hand humbly.

"I'll go get us some more drinks," Henry muttered as he left for the bar, presumably to allow Ian and myself to catch up a bit.

"What brings you to Washington?" I asked Ian curiously. He just never seemed like the type who would go into politics, not back when I knew him at least.

"I work in the White House now," he responded. "I'm like one of those guys on the West Wing, writing speeches for the President. Remember the stage plays you wrote in English class?"

"Vaguely."

"Well it's not all that different. I write dialogue using the President's voice, he performs it. So how are you connected to this town now?"

"I'm trying to finalize a defense contract for Frost International's manufacturing division," I glanced across the room at the country's Commander in Chief. "If all goes well, my school should be financially secured for a few more years at least."

"So you still teach?"

"Yeah, it's all your fault, Ian. Everything I do now is just a ploy to pay for my addiction to teaching."

Ian smiled with a look of satisfaction, like he felt he had actually succeeded in some way.

I couldn't help but notice that a European man, accompanied by his own group of bodyguards, was clearly watching Henry and the President in particular. It didn't make sense to me, so my first instinct was to check him out telepathically, but I saw nothing. Just blank. I had nothing to go on but my intuition.

"What's wrong, Emma?" Ian asked with a tone of concern that's usually reserved for parents.

"That man over there, who is he?"

"Oh, that's Heinrich Van Helden," Ian informed me. "He worked for the Department of Defense some time ago, but I've seen him going to private meetings at the White House lately."

When normal people have a gut feeling about something, even the slightest feeling seems like a significant vision to them. But for a telepath such as myself, it almost felt disabling that I had nothing more than an intangible sense of intuition about the situation. You might compare it to a blind man seeing a vague shape of light. To him, it's vision for the first time, but to a person who has had 20/20 vision for most of their life, that vague shape of light is nowhere near true vision.

"Get out," I whispered to Ian.

"Why? What's going on?"

"Just trust me, Ian. Just get out of here as quickly as you can."

Henry was at the bar, with a glass of wine in his right hand and his left hand resting on the table top, charming a redhead and a brunette. The brunette was standing to his side closer to me. Van Helden was keeping an unusually close watch on Henry and the President, apparently concerned with the distance between the two of them, for some unknown reason.

I began to walk toward Henry. Van Helden spoke inaudibly into a microphone on his shirt cuff, apparently issuing some kind of order. As I approached the doctor, the brunette slowly retrieved a small gel capsule from her purse.

"Henry!" I yelled to him, but he was too distracted, laughing with the two women.

"Now!" Van Helden commanded into his microphone.

The brunette quickly slammed the capsule onto Henry's left hand above the table top and squeezed it to cause its contents to burst out. I then grabbed her and forced her to turn and face me. Henry winced in pain from the burn of the substance and quickly pulled the broken capsule off of his hand. But it was too late.

All of the other guests in the room went into convulsions, grabbing their throats instinctively as their eyes nearly bulged from their skulls. They regurgitated chewed food and liquids onto the ground. Internal bleeding took over briefly before they each collapsed.

And just as suddenly as it all began, it ended.

In a dead silence, everybody in the room who were socializing with each other only moments ago were on the floor in a pool of their own secretions. Only Henry and I remained apparently unaffected. Ian was nowhere in sight, thankfully. But also missing were Heinrich Van Helden and his bodyguards, not to mention the brunette who was right in front of me only a split second ago.

"Henry," I tried to get his attention, but he didn't answer. He simply held what was left of the gel capsule in his right hand and stared at it quietly. I motioned toward the body of the President, only a few feet away from Henry. "It was an assassination."

  
  
Henry and I slowly exited the building. We were both exhausted, and somewhat still in shock from the events we had just witnessed. Above all, we were confused. What was Van Helden after? Why was Henry used for the assassination? Why was everyone other than Henry and myself affected by whatever it was?

As expected, we were soon surrounded by the media, with microphones, cameras and lights in our faces as if we had just walked out of an awards ceremony. Ignoring them was already customary under the circumstances, but there was someone else nearby who had other ideas. Unfortunately for us, it was the same brunette who had used the gel capsule on Henry.

"Excuse me, miss," a reporter approached the brunette, "could you give us your account of what happened inside?"

"I was just talking to Doctor McCoy, he seemed like a nice man. But then, he took out some kind of a capsule. I knew something was wrong, so I tried to stop him, but his boss attacked me from behind." She began to cry dramatically for the cameras. "I was so scared, so I just ran out of there as quickly as I could."

"Thank you, ma'am. I know this must've been difficult for you."

Under different circumstances, I would've taken this moment to telepathically convince the brunette that she was a four-hundred-pound obese woman with an uncontrollable craving for microphones. But it wasn't going to help our situation, and both Henry and I knew that nothing we were about to do or say could possibly convince the people that the brunette was lying. Accusations are first come, first serve.

"Assassins!" A fat man wearing torn jeans and an unwashed white undershirt yelled. He then picked up a stone from the ground and threw it with poor aim in our direction.

As usual with weak minds, a large group of people gathering on the streets then followed the example set by the aforementioned genius of a man. I took diamond form, mostly out of instinct by then. Henry continued to remain fairly silent as he simply stayed by my side. The mob was blocking the path toward our limo.

But then, like a bright light falling from the sky, a helicopter marked with the White House insignia descended near us.

"Emma! Get in!" Ian yelled to us from within. Henry and I quickly boarded, with stones and litter being thrown by the mob on the street hitting the side of the vehicle.

When we were safely off the ground, Henry simply sat looking out the window and down onto the cityscape. I hadn't seen him so quiet in years. He's the kind of person who would be more concerned with the entire room full of people having lost their lives that night, than the fact that he was being framed for the act.

"Are you two alright?" Ian asked.

"We're fine," Henry answered. They were the first words out of his mouth since the moment of terror.

"What can you tell us about Heinrich Van Helden?" I asked Ian. If there was ever a time to focus on making important decisions, this was it.

"I know he's from a South African diamond mining family, but he came to America decades ago and got involved with the Department of Defense when they created the Internet. He helped create the designs that allowed the internet to function for the military's communication even if a nuclear war broke out with Russia."

"That's all very interesting, but do you have any idea why he would want the President assassinated?"

"Well I can't say I know the man personally, I only saw him around at the White House. But I've heard down the grapevine that he's been using his creation, namely the Internet, to recruit youngsters for some sort of New American Revolution. He has friends in high places, not to mention the fact that the communication network he helped build is currently the backbone of our entire world."

  
  
Half past midnight, Ian, Henry and I returned to the New Massachusetts Academy in Boston. I had been awake for about 18 hours already, but the adrenaline pumping through our veins from the traumatic experience of the night kept us wide awake. We immediately made our way down into Henry's laboratory in the basement level of the school.

Henry took the broken gel capsule into the back room and encased it in some sort of air-tight box before bringing it back out to his desk. Ian and I took seats nearby.

"It might be a bit late to keep that gel from going airborne," I remarked.

"It's just a precaution, Emma," he responded patiently, "I'm going to combine it with blood samples from each of us, and just in case that produces anything harmful, I just don't want the stuff going all over the school."

"We can't stay here for long."

The Stepford Cuckoos and Eddy made their way into the lab to check on us.

"What's going on, Miss Frost?" the five girls asked in unison, standing neatly together in an orderly formation.

"Your White House chopper woke us up," Eddy added, standing next to Sophie.

"Go wake all the other students, girls," I told them, "we'll be going on an impromptu field trip tonight."

"Together, the five of us can send out a telepathic beacon to everybody in the school," the girls stated confidently as they walked away together with Eddy.

Ian just stared at the group of students with an expression of fascination.

"Just imagine you had five of me in your class, that's probably what they're like," I commented, to which Ian just grinned.

"Okay, I'll need a sample of your blood, Emma," Henry announced, "and yours too, Mister Kendall."

"You can call me Ian."

"Let's just get this done as quickly as possible, Mister Kendall," Henry responded flatly. He held my arm gently to take the blood sample and continued, "I can't bring all my lab equipment along if we're leaving."

As I mentioned before, I rarely read Henry's mind. But that night, I finally noticed that it may have been something more than a friendship to him. It was the worst of circumstances for such a realization, I needed to think clearly and this certainly wasn't going to make that any easier.

"How long will these tests take, Henry?" I asked.

"I can bring the testing equipment along," he reassured me, "I just need to get the samples into the containers here. My equipment can do the rest of the work when we're on the road."

"And where exactly are we going?" Ian interrupted.

"Somewhere not affiliated with Frost International," Henry answered in a blatantly colder tone than the one he used when he spoke to me.

"Shaw Industries in New York," I said after a brief pause.

"Sebastian Shaw's company?" Henry asked rhetorically, "I hope you're kidding."

"No one in their right mind would think to look for us there, Henry."

"And for good reason, Emma. We can't trust him."

"Wait, I'm lost here. Sebastian who?" Ian asked out of genuine curiosity.

"Another man in Emma's past," Henry responded, "he owns a munitions company and has friends in high places, but he's not exactly the kind of man you'd trust to sign your car loan."

"Finished?" I interrupted the doctor, referring to the blood work of course, but I left it open to other interpretations if he so chose to take it.

"Yeah, that's all I needed."

"Okay, now can I leave you two alone for a minute without starting World War III? I'm going to gather the children and wake those overpaid pilots of ours to prepare three of the airliners." After I left Henry and Ian alone in the lab, I couldn't resist the temptation to keep my telepathy tuned in to their conversation while they were still close enough for me to read clearly.

"Look, Doctor McCoy," Ian spoke frankly, "I don't know what's going on between you and Emma, but nothing happened between her and myself. She was my student at Snow Valley, and she had a crush on me once; it's not all that uncommon. There was nothing more to it back then, and there's still nothing more to it now."

Henry simply listened quietly as he continued to do the blood work.

  
  
When I returned upstairs to the lobby of the school, I found the entire school's students lined up neatly and quietly like a platoon of well-trained soldiers standing at attention. Their eyes were wide open, staring in one direction, and they were motionless. It was a sight to behold, especially given the age range of those teenagers.

"With all five of our minds working together, we're telepathically steering them, Miss Frost," all five Stepford Cuckoos informed me in unison.

I paused for a moment just to look at the sight of it. I was very proud of them, of course, but even I have to admit that it was probably one of the most chilling visions a person could ever see in a lifetime.

"Good work, girls. Get them ready to board the airliners, I have to go make a few phone calls."

"We could call them telepathically," the girls added.

"It's a call to New York City. And it's personal."

"We understand, Miss Frost."

Sometimes I had my doubts about Eddy's sanity, but he just seemed to be amused by the whole scene.

  
  
At two in the morning, I had everything arranged. The students would be flown to New York in three separate Frost International commercial airliners.

Outside, a group of large men gathered around the perimeter of the New Massachusetts Academy, yelling derogatory phrases that I won't even justify by repeating. To make matters worse, my lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll on my mind. It was beginning to cause my thoughts to blend together with those of people nearby. It was a feeling I can only describe as disturbing, especially when those people happen to have weak minds visualizing vulgarities. They were the kind of minds that are so easily persuaded by the regular forms of communication, that I almost felt guilty manipulating them telepathically. Almost. With virtually no effort at all, I telepathically convinced the ugly, hairy men that they were thirteen-year old boys with raging hormones, and were surrounded by supermodels. 

While the group outside had turned their attention to pursuing intimate relationships with each other, the Cuckoos were splitting all the students up into three lines, and steered them to board the planes in an orderly fashion.

"We'll see you in New York, Miss Frost," the Cuckoos announced in unison as they boarded the third plane themselves.

"Hold it!" Ian exclaimed from behind me. "I think you and Doctor McCoy need some time alone together to work things out. Besides, I'll just do some catching up on my teaching skills. Maybe I'll even take some of those students of yours under my wing, for old times' sake."

Before I could object to his idea, he ran off toward the third plane. Time alone with Henry was the very last thing I wanted, it was difficult enough to think objectively as it was.

Henry came out from his lab carrying a large suitcase that contained his testing equipment. Together, we boarded my plane. It was Frost International's equivalent to Air Force One. I took a seat facing a large projection screen to watch a live television news broadcast, while Henry took the seat next to me, to my right hand side, and rested the suitcase on his lap.

"Honestly, Emma. Do you really think we can trust Shaw right now?" Henry questioned my decision again.

"Sebastian and I had our differences -- in business and in pleasure -- but all that ended years ago," I responded. "Right now, he's just an old acquaintance who happens to be able to help us, as far as I'm concerned. And there's really nothing left between us if that's what you're really worried about."

The last comment seemed to take Henry by surprise, but to prevent any further discussion on the matter, I turned the volume up on the news broadcast.

"As we approach the morning hours following a night of unspeakable tragedy," the anchorman began, "American government officials have yet to come forward to give any statements on last night's terrorist attack. Local businesses and government agencies have reported a sudden cut-off of all Internet-based communications, and there has been rampant speculation that the federal government may be experiencing similar problems."

The anchorman paused and placed his finger over the ear-piece in his right ear for a moment. "I'm being informed that we are receiving a digital feed from a former Department of Defense employee named Heinrich Van Helden. This is presently the only video feed we are receiving from Washington, so we now go live to our nation's capital."

"Good morning," Van Helden began as his image appeared on the screen. "I, Heinrich Van Helden, will now issue the first national statement regarding last night's assassination. The mutant extremist, Doctor Henry McCoy, and his employer, Emma Frost, also a known mutant, have been identified as the assassins of the President and many other high-ranking officials in Washington, D.C. less than 12 hours ago. This heinous act made it abundantly clear that the hard-working common citizen has lived in fear long enough, and it is time for a new system. A system that ensures your safety." He displayed a banner with his insignia, a red-and-white HVH, as he continued, "over the course of the next forty-eight hours, every major city will experience an uprising by members of the New American Revolution. This is an act not out of greed, but out of necessity for your own survival, and the future of your children."

After 23 straight waking hours, I was finally getting a moment of sleep. This was in no small part thanks to the senseless drivel from the mouth of the fool with delusions of grandeur. It was an overwhelmingly soothing feeling, like a hot cup of coffee after a walk through the Antarctic wilderness.

Then we landed.

I woke to find Henry's furry paw resting on top of my right hand. I pulled the hand away and made the hopeless effort to somehow look neutral about it. I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep on the soft silky surface of the queen-sized bed in my penthouse at the New Massachusetts Academy. Alone.

As soon as Henry and I got off the plane, Sebastian Shaw was there to greet us, dressed in his usual Victorian-style wardrobe, with his long black hair tied back.

"Miss Emma Frost, it's a pleasure to do business with you again," Sebastian said in his gentlemanly tone of voice as he kissed my hand. The expression on Henry's face would probably have struck fear into any other man, especially when it came from someone of the doctor's stature, but Sebastian wouldn't be the slightest bit intimidated. "Ahh, Doctor Henry McCoy. It's great to see you together with us on the winning side this time around. I certainly hope that's not a bomb in the suitcase."

The doctor ignored Sebastian's tasteless remark.

"Have the children arrived?" I interrupted, partly out of genuine concern for the students, but also once again playing verbal referee.

"They're scheduled to arrive in forty-five minutes," Sebastian responded helpfully, "There was a delay according to my people."

"A delay?"

"The three of us will be going to my company's headquarters by limousine," he added quickly.

In Sebastian's limo, Henry opened his suitcase like a laptop computer. I poured myself a glass of champagne and glanced over at his equipment, although I hadn't the slightest clue what any of it was.

"Interesting," Henry remarked as he observed the test results on the equipment in his suitcase. "It turns out that the substance from the gel capsule is only active when it comes in direct contact with mutant DNA. After that, it becomes airborne and only affects normal humans."

"So in other words, Van Helden will turn mutants into walking biological weapons?" I restated.

"In short, yes," Henry confirmed.

  
  
Sebastian's limo pulled over next to the entrance of Shaw Industries' headquarters. It was a massive high-rise building that towered over its surroundings like a glass column, conveying the wealth of the company to all those who pass it, as is typical of its owner. But who am I to judge, the Frost International headquarters is no less prestigious in appearance.

"Just as I remembered it," I remarked.

"Those were great times, weren't they?" Sebastian stated with a certain confidence.

"I wouldn't know, I was dazed and confused most of the time." There was an awkward silence for a moment, as none of us could really follow-up on my last comment. "Is my office still there?"

"It certainly is, Emma."

"You had an office here?" Henry asked, a question he intended for me.

"It was an extra room on the top floor that I was going to use for storage," Sebastian explained. "Emma was more deserving of it, of course." Henry wasn't too thrilled with the response.

"I'll leave you two to duel in the lobby while we wait for the children to arrive," I told them. "I'll be upstairs giving myself a shot of nostalgia."

  
  
I took the elevator up to the top floor of Shaw's high-rise. Making my way down the hallway, with crimson red carpeting and dark wooden color scheme, it was like returning to a piece of a past life. Sebastian and I had held powerful positions in the New York branch of the Hellfire Club some years back, a prestigious organization consisting of the world's social elite. We were the White Queen and Black King in the Inner Circle, the club's governing body. It was an era full of indulgences and regrets, with more scandals and violence on a daily basis than the evening news. I can't say I'm proud of all the memories, but sometimes, nostalgia is enjoyable just for nostalgia's sake.

I walked into my old office in the Shaw building. Uncharacteristically of me, my mind was completely focused deep in my thoughts, not having noticed that there was someone else nearby. The room was dark, but I remembered where everything was located. Somehow, I was not at all surprised that Sebastian hadn't even moved the furniture out of this room to use it for storage. In fact, he even left the wine cupboard where it was. I couldn't help but wonder if he had even let anyone else into the room since then. I took a bottle of red wine out of the cupboard.

As I switched the lights on in the office, I heard two clicks. It was the sound of a pistol being cocked...

  
  
_"Okay, let me get this straight," Billy Doran maintained the monotonous tone of voice in his attempt to sound like some sort of hardened criminal, "you're trying to tell me that you were framed for the assassination by Heinrich Van Helden, and you're here waiting for your students."_

_"Your listening skills are quite impressive, darling," I answered and took a sip of red wine._

_"Let's get a few things straight here, Miss Frost," he began to lose his mock coolness about the situation. "I admitted to you that I'm a depressed victim of the IT crash, whose best friend was killed in an act of chemical warfare less than 24 hours ago, and have no problem holding a loaded pistol at you. You sit there so relaxed, drinking your wine, and you dare lie to me with such elaborate stories. Aren't you even the least bit scared?!"_

_Slowly, I placed my glass of wine down on the desk, and looked at him eye-to-eye. I then got up off my chair quickly, at which point he was so startled, you could swear he jumped a foot off the ground. It was as if I was the one who had a gun pointed at him._

_"Now let me get a few things straight, Billy," I responded. "First, you do have a problem holding a loaded pistol at me, because if you didn't, you would have tried to shoot me already. Second, I wasn't lying and in truth you know it; that's another reason you haven't tried to shoot me after everything I told you. Third, your bullets don't pierce diamond, and I can take the form faster than you can pull the trigger. Last but definitely not least, guns tend to be more intimidating when they're not on safety." I grabbed the gun out of his hand non-chalantly and walked out of the office. "Now if you'll excuse me, Henry and Sebastian are still waiting downstairs and the children should arrive soon. Don't forget to turn the lights out when you leave."_

**  
  
End of Part 1**


	2. Part Two

**Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds**  
By Nate Yoshida

PART 2

  
  
"The New America is upon us!" A teenage boy exclaimed with passion as he raised the flag of the Heinrich Van Helden revolution.

The angular red and white HVH insignia was an image that quickly became a symbol of power and fear in America. Hordes of young men and women marched down the city streets, donning the HVH badge on their own clothing. They shattered windows, looted local stores, and torched apartment buildings in the once great city of New York.

In the midst of the chaos, one lone police officer dared oppose the vandals. In a brave but hopeless effort, he attempted to maintain the law and order of an old establishment. He held three young men at gun-point.

"I'm placing you under arrest for two counts of aggravated assault," the officer spoke with an authoritative tone of voice. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will--"

A blonde woman, wearing a brown coat with the HVH badge, carrying a rifle, approached the officer from behind. She violently attacked him with the back end of her weapon before he could finish reading the men their rights. She showed him no mercy, following up with a series of hard kicks to his stomach even after he had gone down. After a brutal kick to his head, he laid still for a moment while she repositioned herself directly above him, pulling his head up with her left hand.

"Good morning, officer. Do you pledge allegiance to Heinrich Van Helden from this day forward? You have the right to answer yes or no to this question. Anything else you say can and will provoke me to end your life quite painfully."

The officer didn't answer. He stared blankly back at her, with his nose having been broken by her relentless assault. After a moment's pause, he managed to crack a defiant smile.

"I'm giving you one last chance to answer," the woman in brown continued. "Do you pledge allegiance to Heinrich Van Helden from this day forward?!"

"N... No," the officer finally replied. He spat on her HVH badge. "I pledge allegiance to the true United States of America."

Slowly, the woman wiped the saliva off of the symbol and released her left hand's tight grip on his head. She then stood up straight and, with the back end of her rifle facing downward, she raised the weapon high above her head...

  
  
"It has been less than twenty-four hours since the assassination of the U.S. President, a heinous act allegedly committed by the mutant Doctor Henry McCoy and his employer, Emma Grace Frost," a news anchorman recapped to his viewers. "The only form of communication we are receiving from Washington is a video feed controlled by Heinrich Van Helden. For the past three hours, the broadcast has delivered uncensored coverage of an uprising by the former Department of Defense employee's nation-wide network of followers."

They called it the first Internet-induced national revolution. It was a cult-like organization of foolish lemmings who were willing to give their lives for a man they never even met. The ideologies Van Helden preached to them were extreme, yet intricately crafted to take advantage of young people's instincts for self-preservation, desire for perceived power, and hunger for purpose. It was a pathetic yet chilling look into the worst sides of humanity.

I sat quietly alone in Shaw Industries' video conference room, a few doors down the hallway from my old office. For three hours, I watched the local news broadcast on the large digital projection screen. Van Helden's live video feed followed amateur camera crews in various cities, as they celebrated the destructive and violent acts as though it were the opening day of a major sporting event. In contrast with the kind of pretentious preaching that I had seen Van Helden delivering prior to the chaos, the new material placed a blatant emphasis on the brutal punishment of people who resisted. It seemed as though his phase of ideological recruitment had passed, and it was time for straight-forward intimidation.

  
  
I returned to the ground floor of Shaw Industries' headquarters. Sebastian and Henry sat across from each other in the lounge, discussing their differences in a civil manner. They were old rivals with new reasons to dislike each other, but even then, they shared a mutual respect for one another. I would imagine that if the two were to engage in an all-out argument, they would do so with a cultured exchange of wit, not with loud, angry words. But at the moment, Henry simply struggled to convince himself that Sebastian could actually be trusted.

"My business is and always has been survival," Sebastian spoke calmly. "May I remind you that my company already established multi-billion dollar contracts with the Department of Defense when Mister Van Helden was employed as a technical assistance clerk."

"Emma!" Henry called to me. "Where have you been for so long? We were beginning to worry."

"Speak for yourself, Doctor McCoy," Sebastian commented as he leaned back on his seat. "I'm quite confident from past experience that Emma is very capable of handling problems on her own. Isn't that right, my former White Queen?"

"I bored of recalling old stories, so I passed a little time catching up with the news." I yawned and took a seat nearby. Casually, I retrieved a nail-polisher from my bag. "Shouldn't the children have arrived by now?"

"They were scheduled to arrive hours ago," Sebastian responded. "I'll have my people check on them immediately."

"Don't bother, Sebastian. I'll just contact my girls telepathically. They should be strong enough to send and receive from me now, at least when all five of them are together..."

  
  
_"Good morning, Miss Frost," the five Stepford Cuckoos telepathically greeted me in unison._

_"Morning, girls. Where are you now?"_

_"We're just outside La Guardia Airport," Sophie answered. "Our planes landed four hours ago, and we were taken hostage by these H-V-H people."_

_"They put these horribly unfashionable collars on our necks, Miss Frost," Esme interrupted. "I told Sophie we should've steered those walking body-odors around before they locked the collars on us, but she kept preaching about your alternative methods lecture. Now we're too weak to control a farm animal."_

_"Okay, girls, just stay calm. At least you can still send and receive, so just let me see what's going on. Remember when I taught you how to route your vision?"_

_"Yes, Miss Frost," Sophie responded. "I'll route you through Esme's sight."_

_"Wait, why me?" Esme questioned her sister._

_"Miss Frost needs to see what's going on here, so just let her see it through your eyes."_

_"But look what happened last time you listened to Miss Frost!"_

_"Don't argue, Esme. What's done is done."_

  
  
The students of New Massachusetts Academy marched down 25th Avenue in New York City. Ian Kendall, the Stepford Cuckoos and Sophie's boyfriend, Eddy, walked at the front. The other students followed them in a long line that stretched multiple city blocks, with armed members of the Van Helden movement to either side.

A short, bald weasel of a man carried an HVH flag and led the pack with an overt enthusiasm. He seemed to enjoy the sensation of feeling in charge, most likely because he never once experienced being in a remotely important position prior to this day. Seeing his appearance through Esme's eyes was, quite frankly, the comic relief of my morning up to that point. Walking beside him was a blonde woman in a brown coat. I recognized her from that morning's Van Helden video feeds, but she looked oddly familiar to me on top of that. It was difficult to get a clearer look at her, since Esme had to stay in line if she wanted to survive this mess.

A Jeep marked with the HVH insignia passed by, patrolling the city streets to eliminate any surviving opposition.

"Move to the sides of the street and shut up!" The weasel commanded the line of students like his own personal army.

"See what you got us into?" Esme grumbled to Sophie, and possibly to me as well.

"I said shut up!" The weasel yelled. He jabbed the end of his rifle into Esme's stomach.

"Hey!" Ian yelled back at him, stepping forward to defend my student.

"You got a problem there, four-eyes?" The weasel violently grabbed hold of Ian's shirt collar. The woman in brown held him back.

"Not here," the woman told him.

"Where exactly are you taking us?" Ian questioned, showing no sign of fear.

"You will be executed on the shore of Flushing Bay," the weasel responded. "Standard procedure, it reduces the hassles of body disposal."

"Executed? For what?!"

"Unauthorized access to air space on the day of the New American Revolution, in accordance with the Van Helden Manifesto Revision 5.2a Section C."

"No," the woman suddenly spoke up.

"What?!" The weasel yelled at her as if he were a drill sergeant training a new recruit.

"I said no," she repeated, "we're not executing them."

"You're either with us or you're against us, Matilda!"

"That's Miss Brant to you. And you know damn well I was one of the original Van Helden supporters," Matilda responded. "This may be a power trip to you, but some of us actually believe in the cause. The air space restriction was our convenient excuse to justify shooting anything out of the sky on the day of our uprising. It was written as a precaution in case the Air Force saw fit to retaliate, not for school children."

"Section C of the Van Helden Manifesto specifically states that--"

"Yeah, yeah, the Manifesto said this, said that. I was part of the committee that wrote it, you over-zealous moron! We needed something codified for idiots like you to follow."

Having run out of anything even resembling a verbal argument, the weasel resorted to turning his rifle at his own co-member. But faster than he could even enjoy a moment of feeling in control of the situation, Matilda cocked her own rifle and aimed it back at him. The entire line of students and all the other Van Helden supporters stopped in their tracks.

"Hey," a red-haired HVH supporter yelled from farther back in the line, "what the hell's goin' on up there?!"

"I've got it under control!" Matilda yelled back to him, keeping her focus on the weasel.

"Don't listen to her," the weasel announced to the rest of the supporters. "She's losing her dedication to the cause! She must be eliminated! Van Helden has no room for the weak!"

"Each and every one of these men know me personally, and they know what I've done for the cause," Matilda replied.

"She's losing her nerve!" The weasel continued persistently in his effort to convince the others to back him up.

"You're the one who's losing it," Matilda responded calmly. "You think we're doing this for some cheap power trip. You're a disgrace to the movement."

"Yeah?" It was as though the weasel took Matilda's comment as a challenge. He turned his rifle to aim at the students instead.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Proving you've lost your nerve," the weasel responded with a grin. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

In an instant, two gunshots fired. It happened so quickly that it was nearly impossible to tell who pulled the trigger first. It didn't really matter who did. All that mattered was that the weasel had fired off a shot toward the students, and Matilda almost simultaneously fired the shot that killed him in return.

Being connected to Esme's mind, I knew she expected Sophie to gloat about having foreseen this internal conflict, but she didn't hear a word from her sister after the gunfire. She just stared at the dead weasel, partly afraid to turn around for fear of the unspeakable.

Finally, Esme slowly turned around to check who had been hit. But it wasn't Sophie as she had feared. It was her boyfriend, Eddy. The weasel's bullet landed in his stomach. Sophie held him in her arms, kneeling on the concrete floor. Their sisters and most of the other students watched in a bare silence.

Ian quickly checked Eddy's pulse.

"He's alive," Ian told the students. He then turned toward Matilda. "Matilda, we need to get him to a hospital."

"That's Miss Brant to you," Matilda answered without so much as a shadow of sympathy in her tone.

"Excuse me?"

"Mister Ian Kendall, I remember you. I was one of your top students in Snow Valley before my family declared bankruptcy. I still remember the day I asked you if I may call you by your first name then, and you flatly told me 'no, you may not'. Well in case you haven't noticed, the tables have turned since then. So I would appreciate it if you could respect the authority of my rifle by addressing me as Miss Brant."

"Look, _Miss Brant_. I've had many students over the years, and to be perfectly honest, I really don't remember them all. I certainly wouldn't remember one who still holds a grudge with me about my name."

"But you remembered your teacher's pet, little Emma Frost. Didn't you, Ian?"

"Grow up, Matilda! This boy needs to get to a hospital!"

"You see this HVH symbol on my coat, Ian?" Matilda pointed to her badge. "I was a founding member of this movement because my fiance was killed in a terrorist attack by the mutant extremist they called Magneto. Thousands die on a daily basis. We have higher priorities right now."

"Then why did you help us?" Ian asked, pointing at the body of the weasel.

"I didn't. I just have better uses for these freak kids." Matilda turned to faced Esme eye to eye and spoke to me, "I know you're watching, Emma. These collars on your students were designed from your own blue-prints for the devices you used to enhance your own telepathy some years ago. With a few of my own modifications, they work quite well for controlling your freak abilities. Life is full of irony, isn't it? I know how much your students mean to you. So unless you want them to spend the rest of their lives as drooling vegetables, meet me at Flushing Bay and face me in person once and for all."

  
  
I returned my attention to my immediate surroundings and reflected on the situation for a moment. Matilda was right about one thing, I would risk my life for my students.

"I'm going to Hartsdale in Westchester County," I announced to Sebastian and Henry. In their perspective, I had been sitting quietly in the lounge with them for the past few minutes.

"Hartsdale? Are you sure that would be a wise decision?" Sebastian asked. He seemed surprised at my choice of destination in particular. His reaction was strange under the circumstances, but I thought little of it at the moment.

"The children are being held hostage by a group of Van Helden's people. Eddy has been shot. He needs medical attention."

"You can take one of my company vehicles, but I regret that I will not be able to accompany you on this trip. I have an important business meeting to attend that may have a significant impact on the national situation."

"I'll come with you," Henry quickly interjected. "I can help Eddy as soon as we reach the group." I knew Henry would take the opportunity to accompany me on this trip, but I wasn't about to offer any objections. He was, after all, a doctor.

"Alright, bring some medical supplies along," I replied. "But we're not going directly to them just yet. The woman leading the group is Matilda Brant, she was an old rival of mine from the Snow Valley School for Girls. After watching the last few minutes unfold through Esme's eyes, I've come to the conclusion that Matilda has serious mental issues. I wouldn't be who I am today if I walked so foolishly into her blatant trap."

  
  
Henry and I exited the rear of the Shaw Industries headquarters and boarded one of the company's trucks. It wasn't the most elegant of vehicles, but it served our purpose. Henry wore his old black leather jacket from his days of employment here in New York, and carried a custom-made first aid kit with the supplies he needed to attend to Eddy's gunshot wound. I wore my white coat with long matching pants, and assumed organic-diamond form in case I needed the physical strength and protection.

There were nearly no pedestrians on the streets. Everyone who was aligned with the Van Helden movement were patrolling the area, checking local buildings for HVH banners. Others were either already killed or deep in hiding.

Eventually, we entered Hartsdale. It was an area of Westchester that was inhabited largely by people of Japanese descent. There was a very distinct presence of men on the street who openly dared not to display the HVH insignia on their clothing. They were dressed in suits, and some were guarding the entrances of buildings.

"I don't mean to pry into your personal affairs, Emma," Henry spoke up, "but why exactly are we here?"

"I'm going to see an old business associate of mine at Club Kazama," I answered. "Shaw and I had all sorts of powerful allies when we worked at the Hellfire Club over on 5th Avenue. Sho Kazama won't be the kind of man you're used to dealing with, but I'll be doing the talking. Just follow me and you'll be fine."

We pulled over next to Club Kazama in the Hartsdale area. It was marked with a large neon sign and guarded by two large men at the entrance. No efforts were made to maintain a low profile about the nature of the business. Van Helden's organization had apparently avoided confrontation with them as far as I could see.

"We're here to see Mister Kazama," I told the guards at the entrance.

"Mister Kazama has business with a blue-furred cat and a walking piece of jewelry?" The blonde-haired guard remarked. "What next, an alien chick with metal underwear?" The other guard just grinned.

"Pardon me, dear," I responded calmly, "but you'll find that this is really not the time to be rude to us."

"Ooh, she makes threats," the blonde guard walked closer and tried to stare me down. I looked back at him coldly and didn't back down so much as an inch. He ran his hand slowly down the side of my face. "Not a bad piece of ass though... if she was even human."

I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and turned it out to the side, causing a loud snap of the joint. Before he had a moment to wince in pain, I followed up with a tight grip around his neck with my right hand and lifted him two inches off the ground.

"Lesson number one, darling: Look, don't touch." I tightened the grip on his throat and added, "if you desire further lessons in the ways of polite society, your nasty auntie Emma would be gladly obliged. Otherwise, please be so kind as to take us to Mister Kazama."

  
  
The blonde guard led us through the ground floor of Club Kazama, passing dancers performing lap dances for men who wanted to escape the pressures created by all the recent chaos. Admittedly, the atmosphere carried an element of nostalgia for me personally. Henry, on the other hand, observed his surroundings with a kind of neutral fascination.

"I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you, Miss Frost," the guard told me while we walked toward the rear of the club. He held his wrist in pain but tried not to be obvious about it. "If there's anything I can do for Frost International--"

"It's alright, dear. I needed the exercise."

He mumbled inaudibly into an intercom unit next to a set of double doors at the rear.

"Mister Kazama will see you now," he told us as he opened the doors, revealing a staircase. "Upstairs, second door on the left." Henry and I made our way up to the second floor of the building, into a dark hallway.

We entered Kazama's office. It was lit primarily by the sunlight coming through narrow windows looking down onto the city streets. Sho Kazama sat behind a large wooden desk with a lamp and a personal computer. He was a Japanese-American in his forties, wearing an expensive grey suit, and gave off a strong aura of class and power. Henry and I approached and stood before his desk.

"Miss Frost," Kazama greeted me.

"Mister Kazama, this is my head researcher, Doctor Henry McCoy," I introduced the doctor. Henry bowed awkwardly.

Kazama continued to look at me with a neutral expression. "The past twenty-four hours have not been easy for any of us, even for the Kazama clan. So I hope you can forgive me for disposing of the formalities. How exactly may I help you, Miss Frost?"

"We were framed for the Washington incident by Van Helden's organization, and we flew here to New York in the hopes of finding refuge. But now Van Helden's people are holding my students hostage at the shore of Flushing Bay."

"I see." Kazama paused and glanced at his computer screen. "I am in a very difficult position, Miss Frost. I have done business with you many times in the past, and you have never failed my trust. Thus far, Van Helden has avoided direct confrontation with us. However, I also realize that Van Helden could become the new government of the United States. An alliance with your company against the new government does not appear, at face value, to be a wise choice for the future of my clan."

"One of my students was shot, and he will be dead within the next hour. Without your help, Henry and I would be walking blindly into a trap, and there would be no way we could save him."

"I understand your concern for your student, but--"

"His name is Eddy Kazama. He's your son."

  
  
Among the industrial area at the shore of Flushing Bay, Matilda Brant stood unarmed next to a parked limousine with two men on either side of her. Each of the men carried a long straight diamond sword. Further to their side were Ian Kendall and all of the students from my New Massachusetts Academy, standing in a line along the edge of the shore with Matilda's collars locked around their necks. They were also guarded by HVH members who were all armed with rifles. Sophie cradled her dying boyfriend, Eddy, in her arms as she waited with diminishing hope.

There was an eerie silence.

Suddenly, gunshots originated from distant positions among the surrounding industrial structures. One by one, the armed HVH members that guarded the students fell to the ground. Matilda stood still. She had become so obsessed and so focused on luring me into a scheme of vengeance that she hadn't even considered the wisdom of her positioning. She simply stared into the open and waited for it all to end. But the bullets never hit her, nor the students.

After a minute, Matilda found herself standing alone next to the parked limo. The two swordsmen to her sides were dead on the ground, and the diamond swords laid next to her feet. The students were left standing un-guarded now that all of the HVH members had been meticulously eliminated.

Henry, Sho Kazama, and I slowly approached the shore side-by-side. Walking behind us were a large group of Kazama clan members, wearing dark suits and carrying sniper rifles.

"Doctor McCoy!" Sophie yelled. Kazama and Henry quickly approached the wounded Eddy on Sophie's lap. Henry opened his first aid kit on the concrete floor and took a closer look at Eddy's wound. He then proceeded to administer an anesthetic to the boy, and prepared to extract the bullet before sealing the wound.

Meanwhile, I walked up to Matilda Brant and faced her eye-to-eye. I had seen her earlier that morning through Esme's eyes, but this was the first time I'd met her in person since our days at the Snow Valley School for Girls so many years ago.

"Little Miss Emma Frost, how long I've waited for this day," she began. She managed a defiant smile after a moment. "You know, I followed your career from day one. I watched the timid little girl become the bitch of a business woman you are today. Deep down in there, you always knew I was better than you. Just look at you, you even dyed your hair trying to make your scrawny ass look like me. You rose in the business world and you thought you were at the top of the world. Well, take a good look around you, little Emma. That world is gone now. Van Helden's world will be all that's left of America, and I'm a founding member of the new nation." She grabbed my coat with both hands and lowered her tone of voice. "So you see, Emma... This time, I win."

Fed up with her remarks, I delivered a brutal punch deep into her stomach with my diamond fist. She was instantly robbed of her breath and fell to her knees, gasping for air.

Matilda grabbed one of the two diamond swords next to her feet. In a swift motion, she stabbed me in the abdomen with an upward motion while she returned to her feet.

"Emma!" Ian yelled.

"It's alright, Ian," I struggled to speak as I held my stomach. "This is between Matilda and myself."

"Yeah, it's between us, _Mister Kendall_," Matilda continued ranting while she held the tip of her diamond sword within a millimeter of my throat. "I kept track of everything about your teacher's pet since then. Not just her business. I know all about her scandals, her schools, her diamond thing..."

"You have very serious mental issues, Matilda Brant," Ian remarked.

In a swift movement, I pushed the diamond blade away from my throat to the side, took hold of Matilda's wrist, and threw her to the ground with a hip-takedown. While Matilda returned to her feet, I grabbed the other diamond sword, and we faced each other in ready position.

"Not bad, little Miss Frost," Matilda taunted.

"So how long has it been since our fencing duels in phys. ed. class?" I asked, knowing full well that she would do anything for an opportunity to get even with me for my last victory in Snow Valley.

"Too long." She grinned with the eagerness of a child awaiting a Christmas gift. "I put two and two together since then. I know how you cheated to win it then."

"I trust your obsession also led you to discover that I can't use my telepathy in diamond form then. It'll be fair and square this time, dear."

Matilda and I circled each other in front of the parked limo, with our eyes focused on each other like hawks watching their prey. It was a one-on-one confrontation between two childhood rivals who had come to represent two sides of a national conflict. The old establishment versus the Van Helden revolution, encompassed in an old-fashioned face-off. My students formed a large group around us to watch their headmistress face their kidnapper. The Kazama clan members stood behind them with a disciplined silence, observing as the events unfolded.

"Emma, are you sure you know what you're doing?" Henry asked out of genuine concern, having just finished extracting the bullet out of Eddy's wound.

"I'll be fine, Henry," I replied to him.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Matilda cut me across the shoulder while I was distracted.

I quickly returned my complete attention to my rival and blocked her second attempted attack, blade-to-blade, only inches before it made contact with my throat. We locked blades. After a moment of struggle, Matilda managed to push me back and forced me down.

Slowly, I struggled to regain leverage. She pressed her knee hard into my abdomen where she had wounded me earlier. I winced in pain and quickly used my legs to kick her away from me. She fell backward to the ground with a loud thud.

Without wasting a second, we both jumped back up to our feet. Once again, we faced each other in ready position. The students cheered as though their home team had scored in a sporting event.

Losing her patience, Matilda charged at me aggressively with her blade extended. I parried it and slashed her across the shoulder. She winced in pain and tried to maintain a ready position.

For a moment, she stood looking at me with such hatred that I nearly felt the pierce of her stare. In contrast, I returned little more than a look of boredom, knowing it would only enrage her further, and consequently weaken her guard.

"You might've noticed that diamond is a bit harder than flesh, Matilda darling." I yawned.

Nearly driven over the edge by her rage, Matilda attempted a desperate upward jab that was aimed at my midsection. Her emotions made her so clumsy that I easily dodged the attack. I slashed the sword out of her hand, threw my own sword to the ground, and pinned her to the concrete floor with my knees holding her shoulders down. I then extended my organic-diamond index finger slowly toward her exposed neck, and held it within a millimeter of her throat.

"Organic diamond drill, frail human neck," I said to her softly. "Now give your nasty auntie Emma one reason why I shouldn't end it all right now."  
  
Suddenly, the door of the parked limo opened, and a man stepped out. It was none other than Sebastian Shaw.

"Skilled in so many positions, just as I remembered," Sebastian's confident voice rang through the open space. From behind, he placed one of Matilda's modified collar devices around my neck and locked it in place. Involuntarily, I returned to skin form but still couldn't use my telepathy. "My deepest apologies, Emma. But I have decided that it would not be in my company's best interest to remain politically neutral in this conflict."

Sebastian reached over and gently pulled my hand away from Matilda's neck. He then took Matilda's hand and helped her up to her feet.

"You'll never change, Sebastian Shaw," Henry remarked. "Everything you said this morning was just another deception."

"Not quite, Doctor McCoy," Sebastian replied. "As I said, Heinrich Van Helden worked his way up through the Department of Defense when Shaw Industries was already one of the government's top defense contractors. Inevitably, our paths crossed and we became acquainted. My business is and always has been survival. Van Helden is the future. None of us can change that now."

Sho Kazama walked up to Sebastian with a stern expression.

"You were a trusted ally, Mister Shaw," Kazama spoke with a deep tone of authority. "I provided you with assistance when the world thought you were dead. I helped you survive. And this is how you repay me?" He pointed at his unconscious son, Eddy, still lying on Sophie's lap. "Today, you put my own son in danger! You have cut your ties with the Kazama clan forever!"

Matilda drew a pistol from her brown coat. She aimed it at Sho Kazama's head in point-blank range, and fired.

"Matilda!" Sebastian exclaimed at his new ally, in shock of her actions.

"Calm down, Mister Shaw," Matilda responded with a confident tone. The Kazama clan members had taken aim at her with their weapons. She dropped her gun and raised her hands in the air, as she delivered an announcement to the clan members. "Miss Frost is the last surviving major business owner who opposes the Van Helden movement. She currently has no physical protection from your bullets. I would like to remind you all that Heinrich Van Helden will have full control of the former United States within the next two days. As a founding member of his revolution, I offer you -- the surviving members of the Kazama clan -- an alliance with your new federal government.

"If you accept my offer, all you have to do is shoot and kill Miss Emma Frost."

**  
  
End of Part 2**


	3. Part Three

**Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds**  
By Nate Yoshida

PART 3  
Second Edition - October 20th, 2003

_  
  
"Spill the blood of Miss Emma Frost and our alliance will be sealed forever," Matilda Brant announced to the members of the Kazama clan._

_The students and I stood helplessly at the shore of Flushing Bay, with our telepathy weakened by Matilda's cold metal-shelled collars. I designed the collars' original technology a few years ago to function as a telepathic enhancer. Matilda clearly took pride in the fact that she modified my own design to create a device which not only weakened my telepathy, but somehow prevented me from assuming diamond form as well. On top of it all, she was even able to call my former ally, Sebastian Shaw, a supporter of her regime._

_The Kazama clan members, on the other hand, kept their loaded rifles aimed at Matilda despite her offer of a truce. After all, they had just witnessed her murder their boss, Sho Kazama, in cold blood only moments ago. They weren't about to join her cause so readily, even if her offer of an alliance with the new federal government sounded good to them. Maybe it sounded too good._

_"With Sho Kazama dead," Matilda persisted, "your clan owes no debt to Frost International."_

_"She's right," Esme stepped forward fearlessly. "You owe nothing to Frost now."_

_"Esme! What's wrong with you?" I interrupted._

_"Shut up, Miss Frost," Esme replied coldly. "We're not in Boston anymore, and I've had enough of your gutless so-called alternatives. You brainwashed Sophie with your passive garbage, and she nearly got her own boyfriend killed. If she listened to me when we got off the plane, we wouldn't even be in this mess!"_

_"Stop it! This is no time for your petty selfish arguments, Esme!"_

_"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," Esme turned to the Kazama clan members, "you owe nothing to Frost. But you do owe one thing to Miss Matilda Brant. She's the woman who shot your boss at point-blank range, right here in front of you. For the honor of your clan, and the respect that you demand, you owe her death in return."_

_"What?!" Matilda exclaimed._

_"Matilda offers you a truce with the Van Helden movement," Esme continued, "but your clan members are already the only ones allowed to walk the streets of New York without carrying that ugly HVH symbol! I've seen the way those patrol cars pass by and conveniently ignore your members. They're already more afraid of you than you are of them. You have nothing to gain if you accept Miss Brant's deal by spilling Miss Frost's blood, but you gain fear and respect if you spill Miss Brant's blood right here."_

_Matilda fell silent. Slowly, Sebastian returned into his limo and departed peacefully from the scene. The Kazama clan members made no effort to stop him. They simply spoke amongst themselves in Japanese and kept their guns pointed at Matilda._

_After a pause, the clan's gunshots pierced through the brief silence. Their bullets made impact with Matilda's body, tearing holes through her brown coat, and sending her backward into Flushing Bay._

  
  
The students of New Massachusetts Academy, together with Ian Kendall, Doctor Henry McCoy, and myself, were taken to safety at Club Kazama in the Hartsdale area of Westchester County, New York. The gang-populated block had ironically become the safest place for those of us who had been branded enemies to Heinrich Van Helden's New American Revolution. In the evening, all efforts were made by the clan to ensure that every student was safely in-doors. We decided to stay overnight. My ulterior motive, however, was to find a way for my school in Boston to be safe to return to.

In the smoke-filled environment of the club's main floor, older men in dark suits gathered at tables and engaged in hushed conversations, accompanied by young women who giggled at every comment. It was far from a traditional school environment, but our hormonally-charged teenagers had little trouble occupying themselves. A purple-haired boy drooled at the dancers on the stage like a hungry puppy.

Sitting at a table near the back of the room, I let Henry treat the wounds on my abdomen and shoulder from the duel with Matilda Brant.

"Maybe you should apologize to Esme," Henry mumbled.

"Mm. I'm not sure what bothers me more about that girl, Henry," I responded, "the way she contradicts me, or the fact that she's becoming more and more like me in the process."

"Even you have to admit she was quite clever this morning, not to mention fearless."

"I just couldn't help feeling like she's driving down the same road I once traveled. The road that led me straight into my darkest days. It's not a part of my past that I'm proud of, Henry." I looked around the room. "I can't even say I'm proud to have brought the children here, but it's all we can do to survive right now."

"You've always been a survivor, Emma," Henry looked up at me for a moment. "I've known you on both sides of the fence and I can testify to that. Men like the Charles Xaviers and Erik Lehnsherrs of the world were driven by dreams, misguided or otherwise. But people like you and Esme are the ones who keep us alive out in the real world."

"That's the problem, Henry. I'm not sure that's what I want for my students. Sometimes I think there's a place for idealism, even in today's world."

Sophie approached our table holding an exotic drink.

"Was it always this much fun when you worked in Manhattan, Miss Frost?" Sophie asked. "I could just picture Doctor McCoy running around in some kinky spandex tights or something."

"Henry did wear spandex in those days," I replied. "He didn't work at the Hellfire Club though. He was part of a government crime-fighting unit down the street from us."

"Wait, you had crime-fighters running around in spandex? And you say _our_ generation is messed up?" Sophie took a sip of her drink.

"Where are your sisters, Sophie?" Henry asked her.

"I haven't seen Esme since we came to the club, Doctor McCoy. But the other three are over there talking to that Ian Kendall guy." Sophie pointed across the room at Ian's table. "He keeps telling us how we remind him of Miss Frost when she was our age. He's a strange man if you ask me."

Henry finished working on my wounds and lightly tapped on the collar that Sebastian locked around my neck. "We should get these collars off of you and the students before we run into Van Helden's people again, Emma."

"Yeah, they're such a pain in the butt," Sophie added. "I miss steering people around."

"I agree, but we should unlock the first one somewhere with less distractions," I said. "Matilda could have easily added some sort of trap, so we should be careful if we want to keep our heads intact."

"Unlock that purple-haired boy first," Sophie pointed to the boy drooling at the dancers. "We won't miss him if you screw up and blow his head off."

"Speaking of boys, dear, how is Eddy doing now?" I asked.

"He woke up a few hours ago but he started acting so... different. He said he felt everything even with the collar on him. And after he talked to those Kazama clan guys, he went upstairs to drink with a guy called Funaki or something."

"Kane Funaki?"

"Yeah, that's it. You know him, Miss Frost?"

"We were acquainted. He was Sho Kazama's number-two man when I did business with him."

  
  
On the second floor, Henry, Sophie and I stood at the open door of a dimly-lit room with traditional Japanese decorations. It was located directly across the hall from the late Sho Kazama's office. We observed quietly while Eddy sat face-to-face with Kane Funaki, and other men ceremoniously mixed their beverage.

"What are they doing?" Sophie whispered.

"Those are guarantors, they're mixing salt and fish scales into _sake_," Henry answered. "I read about this ritual some time ago. It looks like Eddy's being initiated into the Kazama clan."

"Initiated?!"

"Shh," I held Sophie back, placing my hand over her mouth for a moment to keep her quiet.

The guarantors poured the mixed beverage into Funaki's cup, filling it to the top, followed by Eddy's cup, which they only filled part-way. Slowly, Funaki and Eddy proceeded to drink as they faced each other in silence. Eventually, the two exchanged their cups and began to drink from each other's. Their symbolic bond was formed in a calm atmosphere of simplicity, which echoed the elements of an ancient culture that Henry and I had only really experienced through the literature prior to this day.

"That exchange symbolizes their new father-and-son relationship," Henry explained to Sophie, but there was only a look of concern on her face throughout the entire ceremony.

Afterwards, Eddy casually lit a cigarette and walked past Sophie as if he hadn't noticed.

"Miss Frost brought us here to keep us alive, Eddy," Sophie told him boldly. "She didn't bring you here to get you killed!" He didn't respond. "Eddy! What's wrong with you?!" She shouted after him and followed him downstairs.

"Ahh, Miss Frost," Funaki greeted me with a polite smile as he approached Henry and myself. "It has been many years since we last spoke."

"Mister Funaki, this is my head researcher, Doctor Henry McCoy," I presented the doctor.

"Your reputation precedes you, Doctor McCoy." Funaki shook Henry's hand and bowed. "Eddy and I will be in the basement level of the club. You are both invited to join us, of course. An associate of the clan is prepared to demonstrate his latest work for us, and I am confident that his skills will be of great interest to Frost International."

  
  
I changed into a white evening gown and poured myself a glass of red wine before joining the others in the club's basement.

The entire underground level was a large brightly-lit room, with its walls covered by racks of computer networking equipment. Upon entering the room, I noticed a young red-haired man wearing jeans and a ragged old t-shirt, sitting at a computer terminal next to the door. Looking toward the far end of the room, I saw a leather couch and a number of elegant chairs facing a large plasma-screen television. I was immediately approached by Kane Funaki with an overt enthusiasm.

"Miss Frost, allow me to present our clan's associate, Mister John Doe," Funaki introduced the red-haired man. "John, this is Miss Emma Grace Frost. Her company's relationship with our clan dates back many years."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Miss Frost," John shook my hand. "I'm sure you'll enjoy the show."

"John Doe?" I repeated curiously.

"My real name's Doug," he responded. "But don't call me that. Doug is dead to the world now."

"Doug?... Does the name Billy Doran mean anything to you?" I asked.

"Yeah, he was my best friend in school. Why?"

"Billy seems to think you're dead, dear. In fact, he held a gun to my face at Shaw headquarters and told me you died in the Washington incident. The one Van Helden pinned on us."

"Well it'll have to stay that way for a while now, unfortunately. I've been helping my new friends expand their business into the Internet age, so I got my name added to the first list of terrorist attack victims that came up. I needed the anonymity. Sorry about the thing with Billy, he always had a few loose screws if you ask me."

"It's not your fault, darling."

I followed Funaki to the far end of the room with the big screen and took a seat on the leather couch next to Sophie and Henry. Eddy and Funaki sat separately on chairs to our right, with four bodyguards wearing dark suits standing behind them.

"Emma, I've read medical text books cover to cover," Henry remarked, "but overhearing your conversation with John Doe back there made _my_ head spin. Who is Billy Doran and when exactly did he hold a gun at you?"

"It's not important, Henry," I answered.

The screen showed live footage of Heinrich Van Helden speaking at a podium. It was only business as usual, considering that neo-fascist fool had been monopolizing the airwaves since the assassination in D.C. But hearing the clicking sounds of John frantically typing on his keyboard, I already knew it was all about to change, and not a moment too soon.

"The first phase of the New American Revolution was an unwavering success," Van Helden told the nation with his typical smug confidence. "The former authorities of the United States have retreated to their final remaining base of operations: the testing facility popularly known as Area 51. For decades, the very existence of the facility demonstrated the former government's lack of trust and respect for the citizens of America. Now, in the dawn of a new era that will bring true safety to the hard-working citizens, it represents the final retreat of the weakness that endangered our way of life."

"Okay, show's over!" John Doe announced to us as he entered one last keystroke. "Van Helden's monopoly on American television ends here!"

Abruptly, the HVH video feed was replaced by a still photo of a scantily-clad blonde woman posed on a beach.

"This is only a demonstration of what I can do, of course," John reassured us. "I can intercept their video feed with our own announcements, evidence footage, whatever."

"Well, it's already looking a lot more attractive than Heinrich's face," Henry commented on the choice of imagery. He turned to look at me. "Unfortunately, not quite as elegant as Emma looks in this gown." I patted him on the shoulder lightly and cleared my throat.

"As you can see, we've got their propaganda under control now," Eddy began. "But they've already created an army of mindless followers, and it won't be so easy to turn them all around. The war is only beginning, and I believe Matilda Brant is still alive. As far as I'm concerned, both Brant and Van Helden are responsible for my father's death. I will see to it personally that my father's murderers are destroyed."

"Eddy, you're just going to get yourself killed!" Sophie stood up. "I'm sorry about what happened to your dad, but look at yourself. You've changed. You went ahead and joined your father's clan, and now you want to die for his name! I'm not going to sit around and watch you commit suicide!" She stormed out of the basement and angrily slammed the door on her way out.

"I'd like to speak with Miss Frost alone," Eddy stated with an aura of authority. He leaned back on his chair calmly and lit a cigarette.

"I'll go blow up a few heads and see if I stumble onto the safe way to unlock the collars," Henry told me with a devious smile and made his way out of the basement. Funaki, the bodyguards, and John Doe soon followed.

With only Eddy and myself remaining on the underground level, I moved to the seat at the right end of the couch to sit right next to him.

"I didn't want to get involved, dear," I took a sip of my wine.

"Sophie will never understand what this means to me," Eddy said flatly while he smoked.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," I responded. "It's between you and Sophie, it doesn't matter if I agree or not."

"That's not the point, Miss Frost. The instant that Brant woman pulled the trigger in the name of their so-called New America, both Brant and Van Helden became my sworn enemy. They plan to take full control of this country and there's no way I'm going to allow that to happen. They pulled you and your company into their conflict for their own convenience, so you're involved now whether you like it or not."

"You've grown up so much since I first took you in," I sighed and looked at Eddy caringly, recalling the day his mother first brought him to the New Massachusetts Academy.

"Don't try to change the subject."

I leaned back on the seat and took another sip of wine. "After your brother died in New York, your mother brought you to my school and told me you were suffering from persistent headaches, hearing voices. She insisted that it was some kind of punishment for things your father did. I knew it was your telepathy in its early stages because I went through the same thing at your age, so I wanted to help you develop your gift into something you could use for your own good. Just like I did."

"And your point is?" Eddy asked impatiently.

"The only reason your mother agreed to let me help you was because she didn't want you to get involved in your father's business. She didn't want you to get killed like your brother."

"I'm sure you've noticed that these collars only _weaken_ our telepathy, Miss Frost," Eddy responded. "My telepathy wasn't disabled when I was lying in Sophie's lap at Flushing Bay. The moment Matilda Brant shot my father, I lived his dying moment. I experienced my father's life as it flashed before his eyes, and saw his memories, his thoughts, the things he felt... the people he loved. I received it in my head like a photo album, and I have to live with that for the rest of my life."

"It's all my fault, darling," I said regretfully and looked down. "I went to your father for help because I thought no one else in their right mind would've helped us. I thought it was the only way to save you. Instead, I ended up getting your father killed, and breaking your mother's trust, all in a single morning... The only reason I even went to Washington was to sign a defense contract to fund the school. Every time I try to do the right thing, I just end up hurting the people I care about." I tried to retain my composure but a tear rolled down my face and even took a little mascara with it. As unusual as it is for me, however, I really didn't care how I looked at the moment.

"You only did what you had to do to save my life, Miss Frost," Eddy gently lifted my head with his hand under my chin, wiping the running mascara off with his thumb. "Just like my father did what he had to do to keep his family alive. And just like I will do what I have to do now. People like us are forced to face reality, nothing is black and white.

"I don't expect you, Sophie, or anyone else from the school to fully understand what this means to me," Eddy continued, "but I know I can offer you a deal that can benefit all of us. You always said that all you ever wanted to do was teach, right?"

I nodded.

"John Doe can help you clear your company's name," Eddy continued. "He can even provide you with long-term financial assistance if you need it."

"I don't do that kind of business anymore, Eddy." I shook my head.

"It's your choice. You can use him however you like. Either way, he's of greater value to you than he is to the clan now. The Internet was built to withstand a nuclear war, Miss Frost. Without someone like John at your side, Van Helden will have you in a strangle-hold forever, and you'll never be able to teach again."

"What can I possibly offer you in return?" I replied.

"Three of the regional bosses under Funaki have already agreed to help me launch my war against Van Helden. We already have the people, all we need is the equipment. Your company still manufactures electronics, ships and airplanes, and I think we can both agree that the defense contract you wanted in Washington isn't going to happen any time soon. So all we ask in exchange for John Doe's services, is a supply of equipment and transportation for my war against Heinrich Van Helden. Everybody wins."

  
  
At midnight, I found Henry and Sophie in the last room at the end of the hallway on the second floor. Henry was analyzing the locking mechanism on the back of Sophie's collar, while they both kneeled on a traditional _tatami_ mat.

"You really should've waited for me, Henry," I remarked standing next to them in my white evening gown. "I designed the technology, so even with Matilda's modifications, my presence should at least reduce the odds of killing Sophie by fifty percent."

"Not when you're wearing that gown, Emma," Henry responded. "It's very distracting."

"It's okay, Miss Frost," Sophie muttered, "I don't have much to live for anymore."

I put my hand on Sophie's shoulder. "Look, I don't agree with everything Eddy plans to do either, but he's not the child he once was when I took him in at the Academy. He's got his mind set on dealing with his father's death in his own way and we've got to respect that."

"You don't get it, do you, Miss Frost?" Sophie pushed my hand away. "I love him. I don't want him to go after those people because I don't want him to get killed. I've never felt this way about anyone before, and I know it's selfish, but I don't want him to die for some crap about honor!"

"I know how you feel, dear. But I also know Eddy feels very strongly about what he wants to do, and none of us can change his mind now. If you really care about him, maybe you should try supporting him instead of trying to stop him."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Henry spoke up, "but I'm already trying very hard to be careful with my big furry paws on this thing. You two aren't making it any easier." He unscrewed a small plate on the back of the collar, and carefully removed it to reveal a maze of circuitry beneath. He looked closely at the insides for a moment.

"Come take a look around in here, Emma," Henry told me. "Just look for anything that wasn't part of your design."

Henry stepped aside as I looked into the opening on Sophie's collar. I hadn't even seen my own design in years, but all I needed to remember was how I intended it to work to know what I would've included and what Matilda might have added or changed.

"How ironic," I remarked with a grin.

"What is it?" Henry asked.

"The traces on the main circuit board. People like to design circuit boards with the traces in the shapes of images or messages--"

"Umm, what are traces?" Sophie asked.

"Those lines you see on a circuit board, Sophie. Anyway, I designed this one when I worked at the Hellfire Club, and if you hold it at an angle, you see SS and EF. Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost. Our initials."

"And how is that ironic?" Henry inquired.

"Because Sebastian was the one who locked the collar on my neck. Matilda had no idea how the technology itself worked, so she didn't even change the layout of my circuit board."

The room fell into a dead silence as I continued to look around the insides of the collar for any apparent changes or additions.

"Just out of curiosity, how do those things work, Emma?" Henry broke the silence again. "I just don't see how it makes contact with your brain."

"It doesn't. They're like your glasses. Your lenses are almost an inch away from your eyes, but they can enhance your vision when you look through them. They don't need to make contact with your eyes, do they?"

"But light waves bounce all around us, so my eyes just pick them up through the lenses. How do you do that with thoughts?"

"Thoughts are projected everywhere too. Most people just can't pick them up. We know dogs can't see in color, but you and I can distinguish between my beautiful white coat and Matilda's ugly old worn-out brown coat. The only difference between my original design and Matilda's is that mine functioned like glasses that correct vision. These are more like windshields covered with mud."

"But it also prevents you from assuming diamond form," Henry pointed out. "So the transformation may be linked to your telepathy after all."

"This is all very interesting," Sophie interrupted, "but can we skip to the part about getting this thing off my neck without blowing my head off? I'm getting very thirsty."

"There," I pointed to a small green capsule on the right side of the main circuit. "I'm sure that wasn't in my design. It would've had no reason to be there for my purposes." I stepped aside to let Henry analyze the piece I identified.

"Clever," Henry remarked. "The locking mechanism snaps a small metal blade into place the first time the collar is locked onto someone's neck. After that, unlocking it cuts the capsule open. There's no way I can identify the substance inside of the capsule without my lab equipment, so I'll find a way to unlock the collar without moving the metal blade."

"Could you go get me a glass of water, Miss Frost?" Sophie asked. "It sounds like this'll take a while, and I feel like I'm going to collapse from dehydration."

  
  
Walking down the hallway of the second floor, I noticed a small crack on the wall between two of the rooms' open doors. It appeared to be a concealed doorway of some sort, designed to appear uniform with the rest of the walls, but caution and wisdom overtook my curiosity. I proceeded past it and made my way downstairs.

At the bar on the main floor, I asked for a glass of water for Sophie and another glass of red wine for myself. The tension was taking its toll and my lack of sleep was piling up. Standing next to me were three of the other Stepford Cuckoos. I glanced toward the opposite end of the room and saw Ian sitting alone at his table. It had finally occurred to me that I still hadn't seen Esme since our arrival at Club Kazama.

"Can I buy you ladies a drink?" The purple-haired boy approached the three Cuckoos at the bar. "I'm Quentin. People call me Kid Omega."

"Have you girls seen Esme anywhere?" I asked the three Cuckoos at the bar.

"No, we haven't, Miss Frost," they answered in unison. "We haven't seen Sophie either, for the last few hours."

"Oh, Sophie's upstairs with Doctor McCoy," I told them, "but no one seems to have seen Esme." They shrugged.

Before returning upstairs, I made my way over to Ian's table. A red-head was offering him a lap dance, but he turned it down and blushed innocently. When he saw me approaching, he made an effort cover it up. I just smiled.

"Emma, you look wonderful in that gown," he said.

"So the doctor keeps telling me," I replied. "We might be going home to Boston after all. I made a deal with Eddy Kazama."

"You made a deal with the Kazama clan? Emma, are you sure you're--"

"Don't worry, Ian," I interrupted. "It's for the good of the students, we don't have any other options right now. I know what I'm doing. I just wanted you to know we'll always have an opening for you at the New Massachusetts Academy if you're interested."

"Thanks, Emma, I really appreciate that. I don't think I want to go back to teaching though."

"You don't have to teach," I elaborated. "The clan's giving us a technician who can help us get on the air. You can work as my speech writer if I decide to make any public announcements. I'd probably insult everyone in the country within the first two minutes, and I know your writing would be more politically-correct. Besides, you seem to be out of a job now, after the Washington incident."

"Alright, I'll think about it."

"Well I better bring this glass of water up to Sophie before she dries up and turns into a prune," I started back toward the staircase in the rear of the building. "Oh, you wouldn't happen to have seen Esme anywhere, would you?" I turned to ask before I walked away.

"I still can't really tell them apart," Ian looked toward the three Cuckoos standing at the bar. "If she's not one of the three girls over there, then no, I haven't."

  
  
Back on the second floor, I walked slowly toward the room at the end of the hallway where Henry and Sophie awaited my return with the beverages. When I passed the crack on the wall, however, curiosity got the better of me and I peaked through to see what was on the other side.

It appeared to be some kind of luxurious hidden bedroom, with a red and pink color scheme and elegant drapery. Esme sat on the bed, wearing a red beret with a crimson tank top while she was putting her baggy red and pink fatigues back on. Eddy lied in bed under the covers.

It was difficult to hear the conversation clearly, even with the small opening, so I placed my head against the surface beside the crack.

"You know I would stand by your side, Eddy," Esme stated with an aura of arrogance. "Sophie doesn't even know what she's got. She's such an ingrate."

"It's not that simple, Esme," Eddy responded. "What Sophie and I have together--"

"Come on, Sophie's just a teacher's pet!" Esme interrupted angrily. "Miss Frost this, Miss Frost that. She won't even take a piss without Miss Frost's permission! How can you stand her?!"

Esme walked angrily toward the opening in the wall, and the crack became a full-sized doorway as she swung it open. She slammed it shut before Eddy caught a glimpse of me on the other side of it.

I stood awkwardly, holding the glass of water in one hand and my wine in the other, almost wishing I was invisible. Esme stopped in her tracks and looked at me for a moment, but I didn't know how to react. Frankly, I felt like a child with her hand in a cookie jar.

"Good evening, Miss Frost," Esme's defiant voice echoed down the hallway. "I see your latest _alternative method_ involves alcohol consumption and eavesdropping on students?"

"Where have you been all day, Esme?" I asked. It was partly a legitimate question, but mostly just because I didn't know what else to say.

"You were right, Miss Frost. There's always more than one way to reach a goal. You may not like my way. Actually, let me rephrase that. I _know_ you won't like my way. But unlike Sophie, some of us can think for ourselves, so enjoy her company while you can. I've got bigger plans for us all."

Esme walked away with an overt confidence. Normally, I just dismissed her antics as part of being a typical rebellious teenager, but I knew there was more to it now. Esme's resentment of Sophie had elevated far beyond a petty sibling rivalry, and I could only minimize the inevitable pain that was coming to everyone involved. I proceeded down the hallway back to Henry and Sophie, in the rare and ironic position of benefiting from our weakened telepathy.

"You look pale, Miss Frost," Sophie remarked as I handed her the glass of water.

"Who was making all that noise in the hallway?" Henry asked to make casual conversation, while he continued to work on Sophie's collar.

"Esme," I answered quickly. I tried to avoid elaborating on it. I didn't know how much they had heard, or if they only heard muffled voices, so I tried to play it safe.

"You found Esme? Is she okay?" Sophie asked with a genuine look of concern. "I was beginning to worry about her, I thought she might've gotten lost or something. I hate these collars but I think they're really making us understand your alternative methods lecture."

"She's fine, dear," I answered. "Esme's just fine."

  
  
**End of Part 3**


	4. Part Four

**Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds**  
By Nate Yoshida

PART 4

  
  
_Airplanes marked with Heinrich Van Helden's insignia flew over the Nevada desert toward Area 51, a top secret testing facility that became our former government's final base of operations. When the enemy aircrafts approached the base, they were instantaneously destroyed by glowing projectiles originating from the ground._

_"Frost International has intercepted Van Helden's video feeds on a number of occasions over the past week," a news anchorman voiced-over the footage. "The latest intercepts reveal that surviving members of the former administration continue to hold their position in Area 51, presently assisted by unidentified forces and making use of what appear to be experimental weapons."_

_The news broadcast showed recorded footage of a camera panning the interior of a Nevada hospital room. The beds were occupied by men, women and children whose entire bodies were wrapped in blood-stained bandages._

_"Van Helden's forces have apparently resorted to merciless acts of biological warfare on Nevada's civilian-populated areas," the anchorman continued. "As a result, the organization's public support has dropped sharply across the nation over the past few days, a trend that is expected to continue over the coming weeks..."_

  
  
Seven days since our trip to New York City, the students and staff returned to the New Massachusetts Academy in Boston. The political alignment of the entire country gradually shifted away from Van Helden and in our favor. This, of course, was in no small part thanks to John Doe, Frost International's newly-appointed network administrator.

Early in the morning, I sat alone in the Headmistress' office at the south-east corner of the school's main building. I stared outside through my office window, observing the senior students as they socialized on the front lawn. It occurred to me that my students were a generation of telepaths who grew up together, like a family that supported each other through the most turbulent years of their lives. The school was only a training ground to me, a place where I could mold impressionable children into the strong, ambitious and powerful figures of the future. But to them, it was more than just their place of study and recreation, it became their home.

The reality of our situation hadn't changed since it all began, as the financial security of the institution remained on thin ice. The government defense contract with the old establishment was supposed to be the answer to our problems -- it was the reason Henry and I had gone to the party in Washington in the first place -- but the former government was obviously no longer in a position to ink the deal. Sure, the underground route was available to us, but I had already traveled down that road many times in the past, and I wasn't about to make that mistake again. I never claimed to be perfect, but when the credibility and future of my students were on the line, I was determined to find a legitimate solution.

I pressed a button on my office speaker phone, placing a call to one of the second-floor guest rooms. It was where Ian had agreed to stay for the time being.

"Ian Kendall speaking," he answered the call.

"Ian, it's me," I said casually.

"Emma, I was just about to come downstairs to speak with you," he told me. "I've been giving your offer some more thought lately, and I've decided I want to start teaching again. Maybe English, or one of the other... normal classes here."

"That would be wonderful, dear," I responded. "But before you start, there's just a small favor I wanted to ask of you."

"Sure, Emma. Anything."

"I've been doing a lot of thinking lately too, Ian. I've come to the conclusion that it would be in the school's best interest to open its doors to the public. To students of all kinds, not just telepaths. If you could write me a speech..."

"Are you sure it's a good time to do this?" He questioned. "I know it's not my business, but you didn't end up getting the defense contract you wanted in Washington, and the student population would get even bigger--"

"I know, our financial problems are the reason I'm doing this," I answered reassuringly. "A school that accepts all kinds of students, including the so-called normal children, will receive more public donations than one that's still considered a private training ground for psychics. Frankly, I'm only doing this because it's probably the only way I can avoid kicking my own students out on the street. Of course, you could write me more poetic words to announce my decision to the public."

  
  
Around noon, I took the elevator down to the basement level of the school and made my way to Henry's laboratory. He sat slouching over a microscope on his desk and analyzed a small sample of the substance we found in Matilda's modified collars. Sophie sat next to him. They were becoming like father and daughter ever since we came back from New York.

"You should let Doctor McCoy take that collar off now, Miss Frost," Sophie commented as I entered the room.

"Class starts in fifteen minutes," I told her.

"It'll only take a minute, Emma," Henry reassured me and looked up from his work. "I unlocked all the students this week, so I think I've got the routine down pat. I didn't kill any of them, at least not that I can remember."

"I don't know if I should give you a raise or a demotion for that, Henry," I responded. "You might've saved the school some money if you set off the trap once or twice." Henry smiled, being one of the few people who didn't hate me for comments like that. I took a seat next to his desk and let him begin removing the locking mechanism on my collar.

"The substance that Matilda put in these collars could very well be the same chemical agent that Van Helden has been using in Nevada," he informed me while he removed the plate on the back of my collar. "Believe it or not, it turns out to be a modified version of the very chemical that allows you to take organic-diamond form."

"I hope, for the sake of your employment, that you can offer a satisfactory explanation of it this time, Henry."

"Accelerated Pressure-Temperature Synthesizer, or A.P.T.S. It generates an extremely high amount of pressure and temperature, rearranging your body's carbon molecules into an organic-diamond structure. It's like an accelerated version of the process that turns graphite into synthetic diamond, but far more complex. The time it takes to reach its peak depends on the dosage. For aerial attacks like the ones in Nevada, victims usually survive as long as 72 hours before they die from its effects."

"And we don't have anything to counter-act it?" I asked.

"We don't, Emma," Henry replied. "You do."

"Would you mind elaborating, Henry dear?"

"Those are the effects of A.P.T.S. acting _alone_," Henry continued. "Remember I discovered last week that parts of your brain temporarily shut down every time you assumed diamond form? Well it's because your A.P.T.S. isn't acting alone, that's the reason you're still alive. Your body also produces a second substance, one that's completely unique to your genetic code. I've dubbed it the _White Knight_. Through a very elaborate process, it protects you from the harmful effects of the A.P.T.S., causing your body to become organic-diamond rather than dying from the heat and pressure."

"The White Knight?" Sophie questioned with a tone of skepticism.

"It's what keeps our White Queen alive when her own body could potentially kill her, so I thought that was an appropriate name for it. Van Helden's victims, like those people in Nevada, were examples of what happens when A.P.T.S. is administered without the White Knight substance."

"So can't we just make this stuff?" Sophie asked curiously.

"Matilda found a way to manufacture A.P.T.S., so we know that can be made artificially. The White Knight, on the other hand, can't be generated without Emma's genetic code." Henry turned to face me. "Your body, Emma, produces this White Knight substance naturally. In fact, you secrete it fast enough to protect you even when you have such high concentrations of A.P.T.S. that you take diamond form within a split-second."

"So Matilda spent years obsessing over every detail of my life, and even tried to recreate my diamond form," I interpolated. "A few dead test subjects later, she probably realized that she stumbled onto a chemical weapon for her boss to use. But she still couldn't make synthetic diamonds because her test subjects didn't have my genetics."

"That would be the most logical sequence of events, Emma," Henry affirmed. "But most importantly, your White Knight can be stored. In effect, you could save entire cities."

  
  
When Henry finished removing my collar, I returned to the main floor together with Sophie. We headed down the hallway toward the North-West corner of the building, where I was scheduled to teach a telepathy class that she and her sisters were enrolled in.

"I wonder what'll happen when we inject your White Knight chemical into those A.P.T.S. victims," Sophie remarked thoughtfully.

"What do you mean, Sophie?" I asked.

"Well maybe they'll all turn diamond or something since they won't die from that A.P.T.S. stuff. We'll have cities of diamond people, and you can be their leader. We can start calling you the Queen of Diamonds... You know, like the card."

"You have a wonderful imagination, darling."

In class, Sophie sat together with her four sisters. Quentin Quire wore large black-rimmed glasses and sat down at the desk next to Esme, he stared awkwardly at the five girls with a smile on his face. It was customary for the girls to ignore him, but to his surprise, Esme actually smiled back at him this time. The other four girls looked disapprovingly at Esme's unexpected response but she simply ignored them.

"It's Quentin, right?" Esme moved closer to the boy.

"Y--Yeah... Quentin Quire," he blushed. "But people call me--"

"Kid Omega, we know, you told us a million times," the other girls interrupted.

"Don't pay any attention to them, Quentin," Esme told Quentin with a smile. "They're just jealous."

"Alright, class," I stood leaning against the teacher's desk at the front of the classroom, attempting to get the students' undivided attention. "I know it's been a very hectic week, but we've--"

"Jealous of _that_?" Sophie responded to her sister aloud.

"Sophie..." I switched to a more authoritative tone.

"Sorry, Miss Frost." Sophie leaned back on her chair and looked at me, preparing to listen to my lecture.

"You _should_ be jealous," Esme refused to give her sister the last word. "At least Quentin isn't going to suicide-bomb the Van Helden regime. Speaking of which, Eddy wasn't even that great in bed."

"Esme!" I shouted.

Sophie didn't speak another word for the rest of the class. She didn't so much as look in Esme's direction again.

If the girls hadn't already been such well-developed telepaths for their age, I would've just erased the entire experience from their memories so we could all move on. It may sound like an easy way out, but it would've been for the greater good of all parties involved. When telepaths like us are among each other, the traditional rules apply, what's said is said and no one can take it back.

  
  
The following day, I made my way toward a podium on the front lawn of the New Massachusetts Academy, facing a number of television cameras arranged by John Doe. I held a typed document in my hands, it was the speech that Ian had written for me.

Before we went on the air, Esme and Quentin approached me with a dark-haired woman. I realized that things between Esme and I were only about to get worse in the coming weeks, so I wasted little effort in trying to defuse the bombs that had already gone off. After all, I wasn't particularly proud of the fact that she caught me eavesdropping on her and Eddy at Club Kazama. Esme's mere presence was a constant reminder of myself at my very worst. But to my surprise, she showed none of her usual sarcasm toward me.

"Miss Frost, we want you to meet Kristal Chase," Esme introduced the woman.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Frost," Kristal Chase said as we shook hands. "I'd like to speak with you in private, if that's alright with you. I have urgent business to discuss."

"I'll see you in my office later," I said flatly. She wore a white business suit that contrasted with the color of her hair, and carried the aura of a person who was born into her wealth. I tried to read her mind, but either she had some sort of defense mechanism, or Esme and Quentin had actually managed to shield her from me.

When I finally stepped up to the podium, I observed my live audience, which consisted mostly of the school's staff and students. In the distance toward my left-hand side, Ian stood together with three of the Stepford Cuckoos, all of them except for Sophie and Esme. In fact, I hadn't seen Sophie since telepathy class on the previous afternoon. Esme, on the other hand, stood to my right-hand side with Quentin and Chase.

"As part of our on-going efforts to expand and diversify the New Massachusetts Academy," I began reading Ian's words. "We have decided to begin accepting students of all kinds into our institution. Over the course of the next two weeks, we will be holding a public orientation event that will allow aspiring students to experience our campus life before applying to our programs. We are confident that this bold new direction will benefit the community at large, and at the same time, we intend to reinforce our school as an organization that promotes acceptance and diversity." When I delivered the speech, I couldn't help but recall Ian's remarks at the party in Washington about the similarities between public speaking and stage acting. During the speech, Ian and Kristal Chase noticed each other in the crowd, and it was obvious based on their reactions that their paths had crossed. Whatever their reasons, their dislike for one another was undoubtedly mutual.

"And we're off the air," John Doe announced. The crowd of students clapped and cheered.

"Good job, dear," I patted John on the shoulder.

"You're a natural," Ian told me as he approached, followed by three of the Cuckoos. "You've always had a talent in public speaking, even back when you were the quiet girl in my class. I'll never forget the day you started tutoring your classmates."

"We're just teaching-junkies, Ian," I told him with a smile.

"You should run for office," he remarked. "The way things are going, you could be a serious opposition to Van Helden."

"I'm not a good politician," I replied, looking over his shoulder at Esme. "Besides, I think I've got enough enemies as it is."

  
  
Afterwards, I took Kristal Chase to my office for a chance to speak to me alone, as promised.

"So what can I do for you, Ms. Chase?" I asked as we entered the Headmistress' office.

"It's Mrs. Chase," she corrected me. "Let's just skip the small talk, Miss Frost. It's no secret that your school may not be able to survive past the next year. I believe I can offer you the solution to your problems."

"Keep talking, dear," I sat down at my desk and leaned back on my chair.

"As C.E.O. of my family's diamond mining corporation, I'm offering to provide funding for your school over the next five years. If my company is satisfied with the fruits of our agreement by then, we'll sign an extension."

"And what exactly are you asking in return?" I asked.

"You are literally a living diamond mine," she responded with a grin. "That surgically-sculpted body of yours is the key to the world's most economical synthetic diamond manufacturing process. All I ask in return for my financial support is a supply of certain chemicals from your body, and access to research data."

"I can't give that to you, Mrs. Chase," I turned to face my computer screen, showing my disinterest in her offer.

"Your lack of foresight disappoints me," Chase leaned forward and rested her hands on my desk. "After all, you've just become a national political figure. Right now, the country sees you as a wrongfully-accused school teacher and C.E.O., who exposed the brutality of the Van Helden regime. We wouldn't want details of your New York sex scandals, murder cases, and shady business deals getting onto the airwaves, would we?"

"Alright, this is your first and final warning, darling," I looked her coldly in the eyes. "Leave quietly and I'm willing to forget this conversation. Otherwise, you may develop an uncontrollable attraction toward farm animals."

"You don't scare me, Miss Frost," she grinned with an unwavering confidence. "I know you can't do your little tricks on me. I just offered you a chance to do things the easy way, a way in which we could have mutually benefited. Just remember, you chose the hard way of your own free will."

  
  
In the evening, Henry and I stood on the balcony of my upper-floor master bedroom. I held a glass of red wine in my left hand, while my silver bath robe flowed gently in the breeze. We looked out into the horizon at the sunset above the distant cityscape.

"It's so beautiful, so peaceful, when you see it from a distance," I remarked reflectively. "It's not until you move closer that you see the dirty details of it, the street crime, the profanity..."

"Some things are beautiful up close too," Henry responded.

"Maybe you just haven't seen it close enough to see its flaws," I turned to face him eye-to-eye. "You wouldn't want to be with me, Henry. Underneath the sparkling diamond shell is nothing more than a cold, hard heart. I draw out the worst in people."

"You can't keep blaming yourself for what everyone else does, Emma," he placed his paw over my shoulder.

"Esme and Quentin are my students, Henry," I replied. "They're becoming manipulative and self-centered telepaths who use their abilities for nothing but their own benefit. I know they're the ones pulling the strings behind Kristal Chase's scheme. They've become everything I regret having been, and I'm the one who taught them. I made them what they are today. If I'm not to blame, who is?"

"What about the others? What about Sophie? You've always been an excellent teacher, Emma. You should give yourself more credit for--" Henry turned around to look behind us. "Oh my stars and garters."

I turned and saw Esme and Quentin standing silently behind us. They stood in the shadow with their faces only partially lit by the sunset, but their eyes seemed to glow in the dark with a soft light-blue tint. They hadn't made a sound when they approached us from behind. In fact, I hadn't even sensed their telepathic imprints. They simply stood there, staring at Henry and myself with their blank eyes.

There was a seemingly eternal moment of silence. I realized that they had probably heard every word of what I said about them. It wasn't every day that I encountered telepaths who were even close to my own level, let alone ones who could potentially be more powerful than myself when they worked together.

"It's okay, Miss Frost," Esme finally spoke up with a piercingly hateful look in her glowing eyes. "We already knew we were your biggest regrets. We don't blame you, but we do have something to show you." Quentin simply stood next to her quietly, with a devious grin on his face.

  
  
_Suddenly, my surroundings seemed to have disappeared to me._

_I found myself standing alone in the middle of a long hallway with plain white walls and crimson carpeting. There was not another living being in sight, just a single wooden door at the far end. It was a dead silence._

_Instinctively, I tried to scan the area for any other telepathic imprints. But I felt nothing._

_"Henry?" I called out hoping he could hear me, but there was no answer._

_I began walking slowly toward the door in the distance. I could literally hear my own heart beat, it was getting faster by the second._

_"Esme? Quentin?" I called to them. "If you're trying to get to me, it's not working. You're not as powerful as you think, children."_

_I lied. One could argue that I had survived experiences that were far worse than this, but every moment that passed, I couldn't help feeling my natural reactions to the fear of the unknown no matter how hard I tried. I felt chills down my spine while my heart rate continued to rise like a drum beating in the dead of the night._

_The more I tried to convince myself that none of it was real, the more I felt an utter lack of control. Ultimately, I felt weak, I felt vulnerable. I felt all of the emotions that I had become so accustomed to hiding from the world with my cold and emotionless exterior. It was my defense mechanism, but Esme and Quentin effortlessly tore it down._

_I approached the door at the end of the hallway and hesitantly placed my hand on the door knob._

_Immediately, a sequence of horrifying images ran through my head. I saw the students of New Massachusetts Academy, collectively screaming for my help with high-pitched voices. They held their heads in pain as they heated up to dangerous temperatures from within. They were surrounded by bodies that were wrapped in blood-stained bandages._

_I quickly pulled my hand away from the knob._

_I paused for a moment and looked behind me, but I only saw the entire length of the empty hallway that I had just walked through. There was still no one else in sight. Slowly, I took a deep breath and placed my hand on the door knob once again. I opened the door._

_On the other side was an empty brightly-lit room with no furniture or decorations. It was just a plain white room. A man stood alone in the middle of the room. It was Ian Kendall as I had remembered him from over a decade ago, staring at me through his glasses._

_"Miss Emma Frost," Ian broke the silence, he looked at me as though I had cheated on a test in one of his classes. "You are nothing but a disappointment to me."_

_"Ian?" I said softly. I felt like I had lost all control of my own mind, reverting to the feelings and thoughts I felt in my teens. My defenses were completely shattered, and I felt like a weak, timid, defenseless little girl again._

_"How could you be so blind?" Ian continued, removing his glasses and shaking his head as he wiped the lenses. "It wasn't just because you were my student. I admit I was attracted to you, but I never loved you. Did you honestly think anyone in the world could truly love you?"_

_"What?! Ian, what are you talking about?"_

_"Your students have a bond with each other, they're a family now," Ian put his glasses back on and stared coldly at me. "But you're not a part of that family, Emma. You're just their teacher, always distancing yourself with tactless jokes and rude remarks. They don't care about you. How could they?"_

_"That's not true!" I responded angrily. "That's not you talking, Ian! Esme! Quentin! Stop this right now!"_

_"Esme and Quentin aren't here, Emma," Ian replied. "And you know it's true. Even in your thoughts, you see the students as a family with each other, but that never included you. You've never even come close to becoming a parent figure to them like I was to some of my students."_

_"No! I won't listen to this! Stop it!"_

_"Denial. That's precisely what your life has been all about, isn't it? Hiding from the truth, hiding from your reality. Since the day you collapsed at school in Snow Valley, you started building a wall around yourself. Now you can't even bring yourself to show your true feelings to the people you care for. Your cold heart will only bring you one inevitable truth, Emma. You will die a very lonely woman. A self-loathing, weak and pathetic individual without anyone in the world to care for you. No one can save you from yourself now."_

_"Shut up!" I yelled. "You are not Ian!"_

_Esme and Quentin somehow knew all of my deepest fears. Even the feelings and thoughts that I kept hidden so deeply within myself that I hesitated to think of them consciously. They used them, they used my inner demons against me, if for nothing more than to see me suffer. I had never felt so helpless in my life._

  
  
"Just stop! Please!" I pleaded.

I found myself back in reality on the balcony of my room. I had dropped down to one knee, with my weight resting on my left hand and my robe draped over my body. When I regained consciousness of my immediate surroundings, the first thing I saw was the shattered pieces of my wine glass on the floor before me.

"Emma!" Henry crouched beside me and placed his right arm over my shoulder. He then looked up at Esme and Quentin. "What are you two doing to her?!"

"That was only a preview," Esme spoke in a calm and confident voice. "It was nothing compared to what we can do to you if you refuse our deal."

"We won't pay Kristal Chase's blackmail by becoming her chemical weapons supplier," I stated firmly and looked at Esme and Quentin with a hateful stare. They were no longer my students as far as I was concerned.

"A.P.T.S. is as easy to buy on the black market as rocket-propelled grenade launchers now, Miss Frost." Esme walked closer to me and grabbed my hair. She jerked my head back violently and forced me to look her directly in the eyes. "All we need is your so-called White Knight chemical, and access to Doctor McCoy's research."

Henry pushed Esme's hand away, forcing her to release the grip on my hair.

"Even if we gave all of that to you, how do we know you won't just ask for more?" Henry questioned the two former students.

"You don't, Doctor McCoy," Quentin answered. "But as an added incentive, some of our classmates -- you know, the ones that Miss Frost does feel proud of -- are being kept in a very safe place. I would guess they have about 72 hours to live. Unless, of course, we're given a supply of the White Knight..."

  
  
**End of Part 4**


	5. Part Five

**Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds**  
By Nate Yoshida

PART 5

  
  
The sky was pitch black.

Esme and Quentin stood before Henry and myself on the balcony of the master bedroom, above the front entrance of the New Massachusetts Academy's main building. Five long hours had passed since my emotional torment began. Through the entire experience, I stubbornly refused to leave my organic-diamond form, effectively preventing my two former students from extracting the White Knight chemical that they and Kristal Chase conspired to attain. The agony of being on the receiving end of their telepathic brutality, however, could not be softened even by my virtually indestructible state.

Henry, on the other hand, wasn't given the same psychological treatment. Instead, he simply crouched next to me with his arm over my shoulder, watching helplessly as I suffered. In fact, his facial expression alone probably convinced Esme and Quentin that it was unnecessary to inflict pain on him directly.

"What do you two expect to accomplish?" Henry questioned the two young telepaths. "This is not the way to convince us to pay your blackmail."

"Shut up, Doctor McCoy," Esme responded. "We're not the ones with a time limit, so don't tell us how to go about doing our business."

"The longer you stay in diamond form, the closer the other students are to becoming deep fried telepaths, Miss Frost," Quentin added with a grin.

After an extended period of time, even the most brutal physical torture can eventually become a tolerable experience given the proper training and background. Emotional pain, on the other hand, can never be tuned out. In the hands of well-trained telepaths who know how to use it as a weapon, it is a kind of pain that exploits the very core of one's consciousness. In this case, Esme and Quentin forced me to face the realities and possibilities that I hid from the world as well as myself. It was a kind of torture that leaves scars which cannot be surgically removed.

After what seemed an eternity of the self-reflective emotional purgatory, it all stopped as suddenly as the end of a violent storm. I fell limp to the ground with a feeling of helplessness and internal loneliness. The dried tears and sweat on my face betrayed the image I habitually maintained for those around me. More importantly, my every thought betrayed the shield of cold confidence and independence that I have grown to live behind for protection.

When I finally managed to look up, I saw none other than Sophie, standing over my two tormentors. She had locked a couple of Matilda Brant's telepathy-suppressing collars onto Esme and Quentin, and was in the process of restraining them with hand cuffs.

"Sophie?" I struggled to regain some strength and speak normally to her. "Are you--"

"I'm okay, Miss Frost," she responded to my inevitable questions before I managed to ask them verbally, "I just needed some time alone so I thought I'd take a trip back to Connecticut. But then I felt a sharp feeling a few hours ago. I immediately knew something was very wrong here at the school."

"So you weren't with the other students?" Henry inquired.

"No, Doctor McCoy," Sophie answered. "But when I came in, I knew Esme was up to something. I felt it. Besides, the rec room was never this empty at night around here, and no one was in their dorms. I went down to your lab and found a couple of those collars that you kept for the tests." She finished locking the cuffs on Esme and Quentin's wrists. "Oh, and I hope you don't mind, Miss Frost. I found these hand cuffs among your... toys."

"Esme and Quentin were conspiring with that Kristal Chase woman," I recapped to Sophie. "They infected the other students with A.P.T.S., including your sisters."

"We have about two days to find them now," Henry added. "And we can't let Kristal Chase know what's going on. She has to believe we're going along with this blackmail scheme if we want to have a hope of finding out where the students are being kept."

"Oh bloody hell," I motioned toward a man and a woman as I looked down at the front gates of the New Massachusetts Academy. "What could they want, Henry?"

"Who are they?" Sophie asked, squinting at the gate.

"Detective Lucas Bishop and his partner, Tessa," I answered. "They were colleagues of ours back in New York. Tessa was also once a slave in the Hellfire Club when Sebastian and I ran that organization. She's not a very powerful telepath by our standards, Sophie, but her odd ability to _jump-start_ is the reason Henry looks the way he does now."

"She saved my life," Henry added.

"We all ended up in cooperating factions," I continued, "but I don't think either of them are too fond of me."

"I'll talk to them," Henry volunteered.

"We can't just leave Esme and Quentin locked in collars and hand cuffs on the balcony here," Sophie remarked.

"Bishop and Tessa are friends, Sophie," Henry responded, "we can trust them."

"No, Sophie's right," I interjected. "If we want Chase to believe their scheme is running smoothly, we can't go around advertising our situation, Henry. She has to think everything is going smoothly, and if we get lucky, she might check on the students and lead us right to them. Otherwise, all she has to do is leave them where they are and there's nothing we could do about it."

"Okay, you two take care of Esme and Quentin," Henry told us as he proceeded downstairs. "I'll welcome our guests."

"We'll put them in the guest room closet, Miss Frost," Sophie suggested in an effort to impress me with her ability to take charge of the situation. "Ian won't mind. And I can move them myself, you look like you need some rest."

"I'm fine, Sophie," I told her. I knew my denial was rooted in my habit of trying to set a strong example for Sophie, because in truth, I felt utterly helpless after the trauma I had endured. Under better circumstances, I would've given the location more thought, but my mind was not in its best shape and the sudden arrival of Bishop and Tessa caught me off guard.

We dragged the collared and cuffed Esme and Quentin into the second-floor guest room closet, locking them in the small space together with Ian Kendall's luggage.  
  
  
  
At 5:30AM, I guided Sophie into my master bedroom's large walk-in closet. It was filled with my racks of designer clothing, which were systemically organized like a corporate storage facility. I proceeded to the shoes in the back of the area and pointed out a specific pair.

"I kept these old shoes from my days at the Hellfire Club," I told Sophie. "That slave girl, Tessa, re-soled it. It's a long story, but that's how you can recognize them."

"I don't mean to be rude, Miss Frost," Sophie began, "but don't we have more important things to worry about right now?"

"I'm going to show you something, dear," I replied.

I moved the re-soled shoes aside and accessed a hidden security keypad on the wall behind it. After pressing a sequence of keys, the back wall of the walk-in closet opened to reveal a large room with my own custom-designed electronic equipment.

Bringing Sophie from an area filled with my expensive wardrobe into a room with my hidden high-tech creation, I felt like I was giving her a closer look at who I am as an individual, and very few people knew me well enough to have seen all the facets of my personality. In fact, no other telepath had earned my trust enough for me to share this particular facility with them since I had started work on it.

"This is my Psionic Amplifier, or Psi-Amp for short," I told Sophie as we entered the hidden room. "I've been working on it for a few years now. It works perfectly well as it is, but I'm always working on enhancements for it in my spare time. You're the first student I've brought inside."

The Psi-Amp was lit with pure white fluorescent tubes, emphasizing the clean white walls and reflective metal floor. On the side directly across from the entrance, a large 53-inch plasma screen hung from the ceiling, surrounded by two 47-inch screens to either side of it. In front of the three screens was a glass desk with an elegant and compact silver-and-white headset resting on top of it. A luxurious silver-colored executive chair sat on a small green area rug before the desk. At the back corners of the room were stacks of equipment protected by industrial computer cases.

"How does it work?" Sophie asked with a look of curiosity and fascination.

"When this headset is worn by a telepath," I explained as I sat on the chair and placed the headset on myself, "the equipment in this room amplifies the psionic energies and converts them into a digital video stream. It makes thoughts into pictures, so people like us can use it for surveillance footage."

"But what do we need that for? We can already see it in our heads."

"I could let a non-telepath like Doctor McCoy see the fun stuff, darling," I told her. "And those computers in the corner also record the images, so we can play them back like security tapes."

Sophie watched with fascination as three different perspectives of the school's front gate appeared on the Psi-Amp's large screens in perfect clarity.

  
  
_"We're only here to investigate the White Queen, Henry," Lucas Bishop told the doctor through the front gate. "I know how close you are with her, but there are millions of lives at stake. Don't let your feelings get in the way. Just let us in."_

_"What are you talking about, Lucas?" Henry asked. "Heinrich Van Helden used us as a scapegoat, but we already cleared our names. Emma and I were innocent. The whole country knows that now."_

_"We're not talking about the Washington assassination," Tessa interrupted. "We believe someone here is supplying the chemicals that they're using to kill innocent civilians in Nevada. We believe Emma Frost is linked to this operation. You know we can be fair about this investigation."_

_"I trust you, Tessa, but--"_

_"You owe me, Henry."_

_Hesitantly, Henry opened the gates for Bishop and Tessa, and led them into the lobby of the main building. Kristal Chase greeted them with an aura of professionalism._

_"Where are all the students?" Tessa asked suspiciously._

_"On a field trip," Chase answered quickly._

_"And Emma Frost?" Bishop followed up._

_"She has important business to attend to at the moment," Chase handled the investigators' questions without hesitation. "The orientation weeks are coming up, she has a lot of preparation work to do." It was clear to Henry, as well as Sophie and myself in the Psi-Amp, that she believed her scheme was running exactly as planned._

_"Make our guests feel at home," Henry told Chase as though she were a trusted colleague. "I have some work to do upstairs."_

_Chase guided Bishop and Tessa to the library on the main floor and left them alone. I kept the Psi-Amp's left screen on the two investigators like a hovering security camera._

_"I already knew Emma Frost was behind it all, but now my suspicions are confirmed," Tessa said to her partner. "I'm not the strongest telepath in the world, but I should be able to read someone like that Chase woman. For some reason, Frost seems to be shielding Chase's mind from me. She's hiding something."_

_"Let's not jump to conclusions," Bishop replied. "But I do agree something is very wrong with this place. I've known Henry for a long time, and I'd trust him with my life, but it just doesn't add up. Their orientation weeks begin in a few days and the entire school goes on a field trip?"_

_"It does add up, Lucas," Tessa said flatly. "It adds up to yet another scheme of manipulation by the White Queen. She hasn't changed one bit, and now she has Henry on a leash."_

  
  
Meanwhile, I kept a view on Kristal Chase using the center screen. Henry made his way back upstairs and soon found Sophie and myself watching the events unfold from the Psi-Amp.

"I knew I'd find you watching in here," Henry smiled as he looked at the images I had on my screens. He then glanced at Sophie for a second, surprised that I let her come inside with me.

"Tessa would really enjoy it if they found me guilty, wouldn't she, Henry?" I asked rhetorically.

"She's just doing her job, Emma," Henry responded. "She's a good person if you get to know her."

"I'm beginning to think Esme and Quentin were right." I paused and looked at the visual image of Bishop and Tessa assuming my guilt. "I never let people get close enough to become anything more than a business associate. I've known Tessa longer than you have but she saved your life, and she probably would've just let me die if I was in your place."

"That's Esme and Quentin talking," Henry put his paw on my shoulder. "Don't let them get to you, that's exactly what they want. Don't do this to yourself now."

"But it's true, Henry," I turned my chair around to face him. "I always keep people at a safe distance because whenever I let them get any closer, I always end up getting hurt, or worse, they do. Subconsciously, I started shielding myself from people because it made me feel safe. It always let me avoid the pain that comes with taking emotional risks. Esme and Quentin made me realize that it also renders me a cold and distant figure that's forever impossible to trust."

"Emma--" Henry tried to interrupt.

"I've been on the same side as all these people, with all these old colleagues of yours, for years now," I continued, "but they still don't trust me. It's not because of anything I've done to them, at least not anything serious enough to condemn me for. But to them, I'm still a cold and heartless scheming ice queen. If it were you that they linked to the A.P.T.S. chemical, would they assume you've got something to do with supplying Van Helden? They can't even trust me, Henry. Nobody can trust me because I never even let them."

"I trust you, Emma," Henry stated. "I know you better than they do and I trust you. I'm your proof that Esme and Quentin are wrong about you."

There was a dead silence in the Psi-Amp as I slowly turned my attention back to my telepathic surveillance.

Sophie listened passively to my self-loathing rant. It was as if she saw a whole new side of me that she had never been introduced to before then. It was a version of me that wasn't the strong, assertive business woman that I always tried to be in front of her and my other students. But I only felt more vulnerable when I realized this. It was like my personal armor had been destroyed and I stood naked amidst a chaotic emotional battlefield. The domino effect of Esme and Quentin's telepathic rampage continued to wreak havoc on my mind no matter how hard I tried to think objectively again.

  
  
_On the left screen, I watched Bishop and Tessa casually make their way up to the second floor of our building with suspicion on their minds. Henry quickly exited the Psi-Amp, ran out through the master bedroom and into the hallway to approach his former colleagues._

_"What's in there, Henry?" Bishop pointed at the guest room's closed door._

_"That's the second-floor guest room," Henry answered. "Ian Kendall is staying there." He proceeded to open the door for the pair and walked in._

_"Who?" Bishop asked as he entered the guest room and looked around._

_"He was one of Emma's teachers at the Snow Valley School for Girls. They reunited in Washington and--"_

_"Snow Valley School for Girls," Tessa repeated and looked at Bishop, "I knew there was something wrong with that place, Lucas. A man was leading a group of sick children into the building."_

_"They didn't look sick to me," Bishop protested, "it was just a group of kids with a teacher, we had bigger problems to deal with."_

_"Wait, sick children?" Henry asked with his eyes widened._

_"Yeah," Tessa confirmed, "we passed by and noticed a large group of children led by a man. They were all wearing some kind of collars. I couldn't get a clear reading of them, I just felt they were ill and needed help. And something wasn't right about the man leading them. But Lucas insisted that the crisis in Nevada has to take top priority right now, so we didn't stop to see what was going on."_

_"What's in here?" Bishop pulled on the closet door. "Why is it locked?"_

_"Nothing," Henry answered quickly. "Look, we have to get to that Snow Valley school. I'll explain on the way, but it's important."_

_"Don't change the subject, Henry," Bishop insisted, "Protecting Emma Frost won't help anyone right now. I know you mean well, but your nervousness about this room is obvious, so just tell us. What's locked in here?"_

_"It's all very complicated," Henry tried to explain, "but Emma is innocent, you have to believe me."_

_"I'm sorry, Henry," Bishop drew his firearm and fired a shot at the lock on the closet door. He opened the door, revealing Esme and Quentin in hand cuffs and wearing the same collars they had seen on the children in Snow Valley. "What the--"_

  
  
"Look, Miss Frost! Kristal Chase is leaving with Mister Kendall," Sophie pointed at the center screen of the Psi-Amp. Chase was starting a company van in the school garage, with Ian in her passenger seat.

"Okay, come with me," I grabbed Sophie by the hand. We rushed out of the Psi-Amp together as mentor and pupil. On our way out through my walk-in closet, I grabbed one of my white coats off the rack and put it on without stopping for a single moment's pause.

"Why can't I just stay and watch on the Psi-Amp?" Sophie asked. "I thought you trusted me now, Miss Frost." We stopped at the door of my closet. I fitted another one of my coats on her and placed my hands on her shoulders.

"Look, Sophie darling," I spoke to her eye-to-eye, "I do trust you. That's why I'm bringing you along. Whatever is going on with Kristal Chase and Ian won't be easy to deal with alone, and two minds will be stronger than one. You and your sisters have all come a long way, but you're the one I would honestly be able to trust with my life right now. I can't even describe the feeling of relief when I saw your face this morning, the way you took charge of the situation with Quentin Quire and your sister. We're together in this, okay?"

"Okay," Sophie nodded.

Sophie and I, both wearing white coats and with our blonde hair waving in the air, ran past the open door of the guest room where Henry continued to speak with Bishop and Tessa. We headed toward the high-speed elevators down the hallway, without so much as pausing to look in their direction.

"Emma Frost is getting away!" Tessa yelled when she saw me running past the door.

"Go after her," Bishop responded, "I'll take Henry to the Snow Valley school."

Still holding Sophie's hand tightly with my right hand, I pressed the down button for the elevators with my left index finger. Luckily, one of the elevators were already on the second level, but the speed at which it opened seemed like a slow crawl to me, seeing Tessa run toward us.

As soon as the door opened wide enough for me to fit through, I slipped into the elevator and pulled Sophie in with me. I pressed the close-door button as rapidly as I could while Tessa continued to run as fast as she could. She reached her hand out, hoping to stop the elevator door from closing. Just as her hand came within an inch of the door, it closed. Sophie and I let out a sigh of relief, but we knew it was only the beginning.

We exited the elevator on the sub-basement level's underground parking lot.

I jumped into the driver's sear of the first company van that I saw parked near the elevator. Sophie jumped into the passenger's seat, ready for me to start the vehicle, but I paused.

"What's wrong, Miss Frost?" Sophie questioned when she noticed my hesitation.

"I just realized I hardly remember how to drive," I told her. "I've been riding in limousines and personal jets for so long--"

"Here, I'll drive," Sophie suggested, "I just passed my road test two weeks ago."

We quickly switched seats. Sophie pulled out of the garage, going through the gate at a speed that jerked my head back and forced me to lean against the head rest of my seat.

"...You _passed_ your road test?" I asked rhetorically.

"Me and my sisters saw the Snow Valley school the first day we got back from New York," Sophie informed me.

"My sisters and I," I corrected her. She turned and just looked at me blankly. "Sorry, I'm too used to being your teacher, Sophie dear. Watch the road."

"Well Ian brought us to that place," Sophie continued. "He kept telling us about the memories he had of teaching you. Anyway, I remember the route so we won't have to follow them that close."

"Just follow Chase's van. If they moved the students, we can't afford to lose Chase and Ian. I overheard Bishop saying he would take Henry to the Snow Valley school, so if the students are still being kept there, they'll be fine. And turn your headlights off, darling."

"You've done this stuff before, haven't you, Miss Frost?" Sophie grinned.

  
  
The sun was beginning to rise. With the glow of the early morning sky lighting the road ahead of us, Sophie and I were no longer cloaked in darkness. Still, we continued to follow Kristal Chase's vehicle despite the risks.

Eventually, Chase and Ian led us to the last place I expected them to go. It was Frost International's private airstrip. They pulled over on the side of the road and made their way into the property on foot.

"Do you think they moved all the students here, Miss Frost?" Sophie asked. "I can never feel telepathic signatures clearly when Kristal Chase is around."

"I have the same problem, Sophie," I responded. "I always thought Esme and Quentin were shielding her mind from me, but even when those two were locked in telepathy-suppressing collars, I still couldn't read Chase's mind. Neither could Tessa at the Academy this morning. The last time I had this problem with anyone was at the party in Washington, when I tried to read Heinrich Van Helden's mind."

We exited the van and followed Chase and Ian onto my company's property. I held Sophie's hand and we walked softly toward the back of hangar.

"We'll go in through the back," I whispered.

As we turned the corner, I felt my left knee crunch on impact with a hard object, and I collapsed helplessly to the ground. An involuntary squirt of tears shot from my eyes. Sophie quickly wrapped herself around me to prevent my attacker from doing any further harm.

Instinctively, I took diamond form as quickly as I could to ease the pain and provide some protection, but the damage to my left knee had already been done. I looked up at my attacker, expecting to see Kristal Chase, but it wasn't her. It was Tessa, standing over me with a grin of satisfaction. Esme and Quentin stood to either side of her, still wearing the telepathy-suppressing collars that Sophie had locked on them.

"That's for running and making me chase you, Emma," Tessa said to me. "I've waited a long time for a chance to do that. Now I have a few million reasons to justify it."

"I have nothing to do with the attacks in Nevada," I stated factually. "My students are dying and they need our help. If we don't get to them in the next forty-eight hours, they'll die just like those innocent civilians. I know we were never the best of friends, Tessa, but please help us."

"Don't try to manipulate me with another one of your schemes. I've known you long enough to have learned never to trust you again. Even I was surprised to see the way you treated these two. They were ready to expose your chemical weapons scheme to the world, to save millions of lives, and you locked them up like animals. I always thought your students were the only people you treated with dignity."

"Is that what they told you? Esme and Quentin are lying, Tessa." I struggled to get up using my right leg.

Tessa nonchalantly pushed me back to the ground with her foot on my clavicle, effectively making it impossible for me to get back up to my feet under the circumstances.

"Stay down, my White Queen," she said as she took her foot away.

"Emma?" Ian's voice echoed from the rear entrance of the hangar. He walked closer, Kristal Chase followed closely behind him. "Look, I can explain--"

"Hey," Tessa interrupted, "who the hell are you?"

I noticed Chase drawing a pistol from her back. In a split second, I sprung myself up with all my strength and lunged at Tessa. I tackled her to the ground with my organic diamond body just as a bullet from Chase's gun came within an inch of her head. Tessa looked at me like she had seen a ghost, utterly surprised at my actions. Neither of us spoke a word.

"Don't bother killing that woman, Kristal," Esme said to Chase. "She doesn't mean anything to Miss Frost. But my sister Sophie does."

Quentin pushed me off of Tessa and tied her wrists behind her back. The situation was probably becoming utterly confusing to Tessa, but knowing her personality, it would be safe to assume she was trying to assess the situation objectively by calculating the best possible course of action.

Chase grabbed Sophie by her coat and held the weapon to the girl's head.

"It's really quite simple now," Chase spoke to Sophie loudly for me to hear, in a tone of mock sincerity. "You see, if Miss Frost continues to be a stubborn bitch and refuses to give me what I want, I'll have to waste a perfectly good bullet on your pretty little blonde head. And I really don't want to do that, my company is on a very tight budget. I think it would be in all of our best interests for your teacher to cooperate with me from now on, don't you agree?" She turned to speak directly to me. "Now return to your skin form, Frost. Then walk to me and I'll release this precious little student of yours."

"Don't listen to them, Miss Frost," Sophie pleaded with me. "They'll use you and kill you when they're finished. I'm not worth it."

I returned to skin form and felt the excruciating pain of my left knee. Slowly, I worked myself up to my feet, struggling to balance my weight onto my right leg. Tears began to moisten my eyes but I made an effort to maintain a look of defiance toward Chase, limping slowly toward her.

Ian had the look of a parent watching his child suffer. He placed his arm around me to help me walk.

"No, let her do it alone!" Chase yelled at Ian.

"Is this really necessary?" Ian questioned. "You'll get what you wanted, she doesn't need to suffer like this."

"Yes it is, Ian Kendall. Now let the bitch walk!"

"I'm alright, Ian," I said softly. Ian shot me an apologetic expression and released his hold. The last few steps felt more like a thousand.

"That's close enough," Chase told me when I came within a foot of her. I stood face-to-face with her and she released her grip on Sophie, shoving the girl to her right side to put some space between them. Without hesitation, Chase fired her gun at Sophie's chest, sending the young telepath to the ground.

"Sophie!" I yelled.

"There, I released her," Chase said to me coldly. "I could afford one more bullet today."

Before I could react to her senseless actions, the back end of her pistol met my jaw like the fist of a heavyweight boxer. The impact pulsated through my skull and exploded with the sensation of a vise closing rapidly on my brain. I fell unconscious, with only the image of Sophie's face remaining in my mind.

  
  
I woke on a cold metallic table with my wrists and ankles tied down. A bright light shone onto my face from above the table. A female figure approached the table, but the light made it difficult to identify the person while she stood up straight.

"Good morning, little Miss Emma Frost," the woman's voice sounded familiar. She bent forward, leaving only a few inches between our faces as she inserted a needle into my wrist. It was Matilda Brant. "Don't worry, your body doesn't react to this A.P.T.S. stuff like everyone else's does. It just forces your body to produce the substance your Doctor calls the White Knight, the key to the world's first high quality synthetic diamonds."

"Matilda. How wonderful it is to see you again, darling," I greeted her sarcastically.

"Your student, Esme, impressed me with her tactics in New York," Matilda commented on the incident at Flushing Bay. "Right then, I knew she could become a valuable ally someday. Luckily, your gangster friends were too stupid to take any head shots, so I survived to make it happen. I needed a good swim anyway, so that pool of industrial waste was as good a place as any."

"I don't suppose you reunited with the rotting carcass of your dead fiance in there?" I remarked.

Matilda's calm confidence immediately disappeared. She grabbed my left knee and bent it forcefully. I squeezed my eyes and mouth shut, refusing to give her the pleasure of hearing me scream in pain.

"Every time you open your mouth, I'm reminded of why I spent my life hating you," she said with an unveiled hatred and grabbed my throat. "If it weren't for the value of your unique genetics, I'd snap your neck like a twig right now."

"Business first, Matilda," Kristal Chase's voice interrupted. "This is a joint venture. Your pleasure will have to wait." Chase approached the table while Matilda connected some sort of draining system to the base of my skull.

"Emma, this is my long-time business partner, Kristal Van Helden-Chase," Matilda continued, "but I believe you two have already met."

"Only as Kristal Chase," I said.

"Van Helden is my maiden name," Kristal confirmed with a grin. "Heinrich's my brother, it was a detail I chose to omit for convenience when we first met, of course. Matilda believed in my brother's ideologies from day one, and she just happened to be disturbingly obsessed with you. When my brother needed a high-profile sacrificial lamb as part of his plan to build the New America, you were the perfect candidate."

"Interesting. So stupidity does run in the family," I commented.

"Speaking of genetics," Kristal maintained her composure, "you might've noticed that my brother and I give off an energy that interferes with your telepathy. Now you're also giving our family a chance to return to our roots in the diamond mining business. I guess some people are just meant to be together, one way or another."

"The first batch should be ready in half an hour," Matilda informed her partner, "I'll go prepare the plane for take-off."

Matilda pushed the bright light out of my face. I was finally able to look around the room, and immediately recognized it as the storage area at the Frost International private airstrip. We were surrounded by crates. The door out of the area was about ten feet away from the end of the table I was lying on. As Matilda made her way toward it, Kristal took a seat next to the table.

"It's not personal with me, Miss Frost. It's just business." Kristal spoke calmly. "That little student of yours was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I never leave loose ends untied."

"You will die just the same, dear."

As Matilda opened the door to exit the room, she found Tessa standing on the other side and stopped in her tracks. The two looked at each other for a moment. Matilda was obviously caught off-guard, but she then reached into her coat and drew her short diamond blade. Tessa grabbed it out of her hand and kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying nearly three feet backwards, crashing into a stack of crates before landing hard on the concrete floor.

Before Kristal could draw her gun, Tessa held the diamond blade within an inch of her throat and pulled the firearm from her back. Kristal backed away and leaned up against the wall rigidly.

"Esme?! Quentin?!" Kristal called out to her young accomplices.

"They're a bit tied up right now," Tessa said flatly. She cut me loose and disconnected Matilda's equipment. "Sorry about the knee, Emma."

"People have done worse things to me lately," I replied as I grabbed Kristal's gun from her. "Take Matilda Brant back for questioning. She's a founding member of the Van Helden regime, so you and Bishop can get your answers from her."

Tessa glanced at the gun in my hand and then looked at me eye-to-eye and paused for a moment. Silently, she nodded and picked Matilda Brant up from the ground, taking the prisoner out and shutting the door behind herself without another word spoken. She left me standing alone in the storage room, holding Kristal Van Helden-Chase's gun in my right hand as its original owner looked at me with an undeniable fear in her eyes.

"When you held this gun to Sophie's head, the look in her eyes was not only a fear for her own survival like that look in your eyes right now, Kristal. It was a fear for mine as well," I cocked the gun, but it remained lowered at my side. "It was then that I realized that she had become everything I wished I could be. She became the polar opposite of Esme, who reflects only the things I regret about myself."

"Look... Miss Frost--" Kristal spoke shakily, in a tone that was uncharacteristic of her usually confident attitude.

"In the last twelve hours," I interrupted her, "you and two of my former students tried to tear down all of the walls I had built around myself as a person. You forced me to face my greatest fears and look clearly at the things I never wanted to see. You thought you were destroying me, and up until a few hours ago, so did I. But when Sophie showed me the altruistic side of her nature, I felt like I saw the light inside of myself. Right then, you put that light out. Now there's only one truth about me that will make a difference to your future, Kristal Van Helden-Chase." I raised the gun and aimed it directly at Kristal's head. "Sophie was a better person than I am."

"Wait, wait. Like I said, it wasn't personal, Miss Frost," Kristal pleaded. "Please..."

"And like I said, you will die just the same, dear."

  
  
**End of Part 5**


	6. Part Six

**Emma Frost: Queen of Diamonds**  
By Nate Yoshida

PART 6

  
  
Forty-eight hours have passed since the events at Frost International's private airstrip.

"Kristal Van Helden-Chase has gone missing, Miss Frost," the police interrogator stated flatly.

He was Detective Lieutenant Edwards, a clean-cut man in his late twenties with dark brown hair. He carried an aura of confidence that bordered on outright arrogance. He seemed like the kind of man who worked his way up through the ranks of the police force by manipulating its politics, and enjoyed every second of it.

We were in a cold, bland interrogation room with sickly beige walls. I sat on a cheap plastic chair, leaning back on it in a hopeless effort to attain a reasonable extent of comfort. I wore the same white coat I had donned at the airstrip, but it was accessorized with a cast around my left knee. Edwards stood in front of the entrance, next to a large one-way mirror which undoubtedly veiled an audience. I didn't care who it was listening to this conversation. In fact, I had every intention of _mind-wiping_ them all when I saw fit to do so.

"We don't yet have the body," Edwards added, "but I know she was last seen with you two days ago. I know your type."

"Well that's very nice, darling," I responded calmly. "Will my type be able to go home soon? One of my students is in a serious condition, and--"

"Let's cut the crap," Edwards came closer and stood over me with his hands resting on the table. Apparently, he was trying to intimidate me but I didn't so much as budge an inch. "People like you make me sick to my stomach, Miss Frost. You take advantage of the weak. You use everyone around you like pawns for your own personal gain. You think you're above the law just because you're rich, powerful--"

"And happen to be an utterly radiant organic-diamond beauty," I muttered quietly.

"--and happen to be an utterly radiant organic-diamond beauty," he repeated my words involuntarily. He then lost the arrogant tone in his voice and paused for a brief moment in a state of confusion. "What was I talking about again?"

"You were telling me about how my wealth, power and beauty make you sick to your stomach, dear." I grinned. "You're getting really tired and you need to get to the bloody point."

"I'm getting really tired," he repeated, "I need to get to the bloody point." He awkwardly stood up straight, no longer able to assert himself in his poor attempts at intimidation. "We believe Kristal Van Helden-Chase has been murdered, and you are responsible for her death."

"Now why would I want to do that, officer Edwards?"

"That's Detective Lieutenant Edwards," he corrected me. "Perhaps Mrs. Chase threatened to reveal the legal history of one of your employees. Mister Ian Kendall, maybe?"

Every word out of the interrogator's mouth up to that point was as predictable as clockwork, especially the ones I put in his mouth, but his mention of Ian's name quickly caught my interest. Ian's history with Chase remained one of the few pieces of the puzzle that I hadn't solved in my mind yet. I decided to hold off on the _mind-wipe_, realizing that I might actually be able to extract some useful information from Edwards first. Of course, he thought he was the one prying information from me.

"What about Ian Kendall's legal history?" I asked with a curious expression.

"Don't play dumb with me, Miss Frost. It won't be that easy, so stop wasting my time. I--"

"You feel like telling me all about it right now," I interrupted.

"--I feel like telling you all about it right now," he repeated involuntarily and took a seat across from me.

"Was he really a speech writer for the White House?" I began my own interrogation.

"Yes, he was," Edwards affirmed. "He often wrote speeches for the late President of the United States. But before that, he lived in California for five years, where he tutored the children of Hollywood's rich and famous. His reputation gave him a client list that looked like an all-star film cast."

"How exactly did Kristal Van Helden-Chase fit into this picture, dear?"

"She was one of his clients. The Van Heldens weren't celebrities, not by the standards of Kendall's other clients, but they were wealthy and powerful. Not to mention Kristal's brother, Heinrich, already had connections with some of the highest ranking officials by then."

"And the legal problem?"

"Ian Kendall was accused of sexual assault by one of his students, but the case was dismissed before it went to trial. The problem was, Kendall was already black-listed by the Hollywood elite. Word got around fast, and they weren't about to hire a private tutor with that kind of allegation in his history. He soon disappeared and resurfaced a few years later in Washington, D.C. We believe he struck a deal of some sort with Heinrich to acquire his position as a speech writer--"

The door of the interrogation room swung open. Esme entered and interrupted my information exchange.

"Okay, that's enough," Esme stated as though she had authority over Edwards. "I'm taking Miss Frost back to the holding cells, you weak-minded fool."

  
  
Later in the afternoon, I sat on a worn-out bed with stained and torn sheets in a holding cell at the precinct. I pulled my coat closed in an attempt to keep warm under the poorly-heated conditions of the facility, but also subconsciously in an effort to stay clean in that filthy environment. I looked at the old stone walls and the rusted metal bars, it was one of the last places one would imagine me staying in voluntarily. But believe it or not, that's precisely what I did. I had ulterior motives for cooperating, and in my mind, it was worth putting up with it all for the time being.

Sitting in the cell next to mine was none other than Eddy Kazama, back from the battles at Area 51. One could argue that his black suit clashed with the environment even more than my wardrobe did. He stared peacefully at a small mound of dirt on the ground of his cell. To my surprise, the mound subtly began to vibrate for a moment and then began to form into the shape of a Japanese _ kanji_ character. I had no idea Eddy possessed any kind of telekinetic ability, but he seemed so calm and in control of it already, that it was nearly chilling for me to witness him using it.

When I first saw Eddy as a child, he was little more than a typical hyper and outgoing young boy. He had matured so much in the years since -- both in personality and in mental ability -- that I sometimes felt as though a whole period of his life just passed me by. In my mind, I was like a guide to my students, the one who leads them up the long stairway toward a potential for success. But I had to admit that Eddy managed to climb quite a few of those steps without my help.

On the other side of the bars was a whole other story. It was Esme, leaning against the wall below a security camera that recorded the sights and sounds of our cells. She watched us without speaking a word. Her cold, blank stare might've actually been frightening to some, but she was nothing to me by that point. She struck no fear in my heart, contrary to her wishes. Sure, only days ago, she and Quentin were responsible for pulling me down to my lowest emotional depths. But I had gotten over it. They were no different than any other mistake I ever made. They were just another bump in the road through life in an imperfect world.

"So was it worth it, Eddy darling?" I broke the silence as my voice echoed through the holding cells.

"Matilda Brant deserved to die for what she did at Flushing Bay," Eddy answered without hesitation. "These metal bars are nothing to me. I'm staying here right now of my own free will. I owe it to you, Miss Frost, you'll need my help."

"That's not what I'm talking about," I replied. "I'm talking about that angry little girl watching us right now." He paused for a moment and gave more thought to his next response.

"The night at Club Kazama with Esme was nothing," he stated firmly while he looked directly at Esme. She didn't so much as blink in response at first. He turned to face me and continued, "I admit it was a mistake. I know that now."

"Yeah, it was a mistake that you didn't do it much sooner, Eddy," Esme commented. "Admit it, you know now from first-hand experience that I'm the better one. Sophie always thought she was the leader of the sisters, but I'm always the one pulling the strings. Miss Frost knows that now too."

"That night in New York, when you interrupted me and left," Eddy responded, "I was trying to say that what Sophie and I had together, I could never have with you, Esme. You know, a part of me really thought Sophie was replaceable. There were literally four of you. But after that night, I realized how stupid I was to think that..."

"Ooh, gangster boy thinks he's all that now," Esme made a transparent effort to hide her insecurities. "A few weeks in Nevada and suddenly you think you're some kind of wise old man, is that it, Eddy?"

I leaned back against the stone wall, taking a more comfortable position on the bed. I still faced Esme, but I didn't look her in the eyes. Instead, I casually checked my nails for any damage from recent events, purposely conveying Esme's lack of importance in my view.

"You haven't come as far as you think you have, Esme darling," I said calmly. "You were the rebellious one when I took the five of you in. You always _thought_ you pulled the strings, but deep down, you know Sophie was smarter than you. More ambitious than you."

"Shut up, Miss Frost!" Esme walked closer to my cell door and grabbed the bars. "I haven't only surpassed your little teacher's pet, I've surpassed you! You _know_ that now! You crouched there on your balcony, crying your eyes out because me and Quentin made you see the pathetic reality of what you really are. A coward looking for an easy way out!"

"It's _Quentin and I_," I corrected her with a yawn. "And your little telepathic assault was nothing more than the psychic equivalent of an attack below the belt, Esme. It stung for a moment, but in the end, it amounted to nothing more than a cheap shot. It just exposes your lack of ability to strategize with a clear head. I'm not impressed."

"Hey! Wake up, Miss Frost!" Esme slammed her hand angrily against the rusted metal bars. "You're in there and I'm out here! Which one of us came out on top? Admit it, you can't stand the fact that we reduced you to a whining, pathetic old woman!"

"I'm not that old, dear," I replied without raising my voice, refusing to give her the pleasure of angering me, despite her best efforts. "And I'm warning you right now, you'll regret it if you gloat about this now. Believe me."

"_You're_ warning _me_?" Esme continued to lose control over her emotions, itching to somehow recover her injured ego. "What do you think you can do to me from behind these bars? You think we don't know about the way you _mind-wiped_ the police to get out of legal troubles in the past? Go ahead, erase the entire police department's minds right now. We'll just restore it within a minute. In fact, we may even make a few creative changes of our own when we do that, now that I think of it."

"I'm not going to erase their minds, Esme," I looked up at her, eye-to-eye. I shot her a confident grin, knowing it made her blood boil that I showed no fear even when the situation appeared to be in her favor. "If there's one thing I learned in my darkest days, it was the fact that no scheme could ever be perfect. No matter how well thought-out it may have seemed at the time, there will always be one little flaw that brings it crashing down like a house of cards. You'll learn that soon enough, darling."

"That's because the schemer was incompetent!" Esme responded hatefully. "We're smarter than you were, Miss Frost. We made you and Doctor McCoy believe all the other students were infected with A.P.T.S. We knew you'd take the bait. You're so predictable. You followed Mrs. Chase to the airstrip, and when she shot my poor little sister just like we told her to, you shot her in return, just like we knew you would. With murder on your record, your school's grand opening will be the biggest failure that never happened. While we played you, Doctor McCoy, Mrs. Chase, and those two investigators like puppets, we even made a little money on the side by supplying Van Helden with the chemicals he wanted for the thing in Nevada."

"Would you mind repeating that, dear? I didn't quite catch the last part. I'm a little confused."

"Going senile in your old age, Miss Frost? I said we supplied Heinrich Van Helden with A.P.T.S. to use as chemical weapons in Nevada! Did you think we would really waste our supply on the other students when we could make a few extra bucks out of this?"

"Thank you, Esme. That's all I needed." I glanced up at the security camera at the top corner of the wall behind Esme. With a subtle smile, I slowly sat back and turned my attention back to my nails. "Damn, I'll have to polish this one again. Don't you just hate when that happens?"

"What's wrong with you?" Esme became increasingly frustrated at her lack of ability to enjoy the sensation of outsmarting me. "Get up and face me, Miss Frost! I'm your greatest fear, your worst nightmare. I'm everything you've ever hated about yourself, embodied in a living, breathing, entity! I make you hate yourself to your core, burning down everything you ever believed in!"

"No, Esme," I said in a relaxed tone. "You're just another little bump in the road that I drove over. I've moved on to bigger things."

Detective Lucas Bishop and his partner, Tessa, arrived at the holding cells. Bishop locked restraints on Esme's wrists.

"By the authority of Ororo Munroe, we're placing you under arrest for conspiracy to supply chemical weapons, and attempted murder," Bishop informed the girl. "And don't bother trying to play with our minds, Esme. It won't work."

"See, Esme?" I calmly stood up from the bed and walked toward the cell door. "I warned you not to gloat, darling. But I knew you'd be too stubborn to listen." I reached through the bars and took hold of Esme's head, pulling her closer to me as I fed a vision into her mind. "Now I just have a small parting gift for you..."

_  
  
Forty-eight hours ago, I stood in the storage area of the Frost International private airstrip, holding Kristal Van Helden-Chase's own pistol to her head at point-blank range._

_"Wait, wait. Like I said, it wasn't personal, Miss Frost," Kristal pleaded. "Please..."_

_"And like I said, you will die just the same, dear."_

_I fired a bullet into Kristal's skull, killing the sister of one of the most powerful men in the nation._

_At the moment, I felt absolutely no regret. I thought Kristal deserved to die for the cold-blooded murder of Sophie, the student who became the kind of altruistic thinker I could never be. I had the entire situation under control in my mind because I've done it before, and I knew I could do it again. Without a body, the police had little to go on. And even if some over-zealous detective pursued the case further, I would just resort to another mind-wipe. It was almost like reliving my days at the original Massachusetts Academy._

_What I hadn't expected, however, was the sudden arrival of Eddy Kazama._

_I loaded Kristal's body into a crate and wheeled it toward one of my company jets, when Eddy's plane landed on the runway. Eddy exited his flight, wearing a black suit and carrying a sheathed traditional Japanese sword. He was accompanied by a group of his personal bodyguards._

_"We can help with that, Miss Frost," Eddy offered. He noticed my complete physical exhaustion, not to mention the fact that I was limping due to my knee injury. "Where are you taking it?"_

_"I just need to get rid of it, Eddy," I told him._

_"My people can take care of it for you," he nodded and didn't ask for further explanation._

_While Eddy and his friends did their part, I collapsed on the concrete floor of the runway and fell fast asleep. The telepathic rummage of the previous night was an admittedly tiring experience, if nothing else._

_  
  
I woke to find myself lying in bed at the emergency room on the subbasement level of the New Massachusetts Academy. When, I opened my eyes, I saw Henry standing over me with a gentle smile on his face._

_"Emma," Henry greeted me, "you're awake."_

_"Henry?" I responded in a state of confusion. "Where's Eddy?"_

_"Upstairs, arguing with Tessa over Matilda Brant," he answered. "They've been yelling at each other since he came back this morning. I was surprised you stayed asleep, but I decided to let them work it out with each other so I just brought you down here and fixed up your knee."_

_"Oh, thank you, Henry," I looked at the cast on my knee and sat up to take in my surroundings. "I hardly remember the last time I came down to this place."_

_"I hardly remember the last time you were injured seriously enough to see it, Emma," he patted me gently on the back. "Bishop and I found the students at the Snow Valley school. It turned out they weren't infected but they were collared and unfed. We found them tired and hungry, with no ability to communicate telepathically. Then Lucas got a call from Tessa saying she followed you to the airstrip. At the time, she still thought you were trying to get away on one of your flights. After Lucas and I brought the students back to the Academy, I drove myself to the airstrip as fast as I could to try to straighten out this mess."_

_"Is that Sophie?" I asked, pointing to a girl on a bed in the far corner. She was wrapped in bandages._

_"Yeah. By the time I arrived, Tessa came out of the storage area holding Matilda Brant prisoner. I saw Sophie lying outside behind the hangar and quickly checked her pulse. I got Tessa to kick-start her."_

_"So she survived?" I asked._

_"The bullet missed her heart and lungs, but she was bleeding to death. The kick-start didn't seem to make any difference either. Not at the moment anyway. So I just sealed the wound and we brought her back to recover. A few hours later, Eddy came into the school, carrying you in his arms. He saw Tessa questioning Matilda Brant and the argument ensued..."_

_"I shot Kristal in the head, without an ounce of regret," I stated factually. "It's been years since the last time I killed anyone in cold blood. But when the moment came, I had no doubts at all in my mind. People really don't change, do they?"_

_"You thought she killed your student, Emma," Henry responded in an effort to justify my actions. "Anyone would've done what you did. Besides, maybe she's better off dead."_

_"Be careful, Henry. You're beginning to sound like me."_

_"I'm just adjusting to my environment," Henry grinned. "It's an animal instinct."_

_"Esme and Quentin wanted me to kill her. They led us to believe they infected the other students with A.P.T.S., but their real plan was to destroy my career. I also think they were the ones supplying the chemical to Van Helden's regime. I know how to handle those children now."_

_"I hope you're not planning on confronting them," Henry replied with a tone of concern. "Remember what they did to you last time?"_

_"Esme and Quentin already did their worst, Henry," I reassured him. "Remember when I said Esme had become everything I regretted about my past self? Well I know how she thinks because I've been there. Now I'll turn her scheme on its head and bury her with it."_

_  
  
When Henry and I returned to the lobby of the school's main building, we saw Eddy standing over the body of Matilda Brant. Matilda was impaled on a Japanese sword marked with the Kanji characters for the name of Kazama Shoichi, Eddy's father's name as it was traditionally written. Tessa stood quietly, as did the crowd of students who had gathered around._

_Before I could react, Esme and Quentin led a group of local police officers through the front entrance of the building. A large female officer took hold of Eddy and shoved him up against the wall._

_"Eddy Kazama," the woman addressed him as she locked hand cuffs on his wrists, "I'm placing you under arrest for crimes against the United States federal government. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you--"_

_"Pardon me, dear," I interrupted as I approached through the crowd of students. "Eddy just returned from Nevada, where he fought on the side of the federal government."_

_"That's the former federal government you're speaking of, ma'am," the woman responded to me. "The Van Helden regime is the current governing body of the nation. We're not politicians, just a police force. We serve the laws of the ruling party. It's not our place to judge the regime."_

_A clean-cut man in his late twenties grabbed hold of my right arm._

_"Detective Lieutenant Edwards at your service, Miss Frost," he introduced himself with a tone of arrogance. "You're wanted for questioning. Just come quietly and I'll try to make it easier for you."_

_"Excuse me," Tessa spoke up with an authoritative tone. "My partner and I are conducting an investigation on the chemical weapons crisis in Nevada. You're interfering with our investigation."_

_"On what authority?" Edwards questioned._

_"On the authority of Ororo Munroe's organization," Bishop answered._

_"We don't recognize Ms. Munroe's faction as a proper law enforcement agency," Edwards responded. "But if you and your partner wish to tag along as passive observers, you're welcome to do so. As long as you don't directly conflict with our interests, you're fine by us."_

  
  
"It's very simple," I whispered to Esme within an inch from her face. "No human officers with a memory. No body. No crime. You, on the other hand, are about to be taken into custody by two mutant investigators who can't be mind-wiped by an amateur like you. Just remember, you were nothing but a bump in the road to me, dear." I released my grip on Esme's head and let Bishop and Tessa take her away.

"You're forgetting a big piece of the puzzle, Miss Frost," Quentin Quire's voice echoed through the holding cells as he stepped into the scene. Bishop and Tessa collapsed to their knees, holding their heads in pain. Esme backed up against the wall, still locked in the restraints Bishop had placed on her. "Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me. I'm an Omega level telepath. In another life, that might not mean much to anyone. But under your tutelage, I am now one of the most powerful beings the world has ever seen. You were so pre-occupied with the five girls you took under your wing that you never even guessed it was me who pulled the strings behind it all. Esme was my accomplice, not the other way around."

With my hands holding onto the bars of my cell door, I quickly took diamond form. I didn't respond. In a way, I knew he was right. I never really thought of him as the brains behind the pair. Despite his genetic potential, his personality always led me to believe Esme had been taking advantage of him.

With a grin of confidence, he pulled the security camera's electrical cable off of the wall and held it in his left hand. Its open end protruded from his fist like the head of a venomous snake.

Bishop and Tessa abruptly stood up and walked toward me with their eyes eerily vacant. Tessa opened the cell door and violently pushed me up against the bars. Bishop removed the restraints from Esme's wrists and locked them onto me, chaining me up against the open cell door.

"I paid attention in Doctor McCoy's science classes too," Quentin said to me as he approached with the electrical cable. "See, diamond is a form of pure carbon with very unique properties, Miss Frost. It happens to be one of the world's best conductors. Now let's see if its organic form works the same way. All in the interest of science, of course." He grinned and placed the open end of the electrical cable against my diamond body.

The electricity pulsated through my heart like the impact of a sledge hammer and interrupted its natural rhythm. My teeth clenched involuntarily and my entire body tightened up as it went into a muscular spasm. I saw my entire being flash before my eyes while my vision began to black out.

Quentin pulled the cable away and looked at my face for a moment. My eye lids became slightly relaxed and I felt the sensation of a moment when tears would be running down my face. But there were no tears. My tear ducts were completely dried out from the electrocution.

Bishop and Tessa watched with blank, expressionless faces, with their minds remaining under Quentin's control. Esme, however, smiled at me with a deep satisfaction. She had already seen me suffer emotionally, now she witnessed me in physical pain.

"I never planned on hurting something so beautiful," Quentin lifted my face by the chin with his right hand's thumb and index finger. "We had it all planned out. Your career would be ruined. We would be relaxing on a beach somewhere, rich and satisfied. But no one really needed to die... No one remotely important, anyway."

"Quentin!" Eddy yelled to my tormentor. He stood defiantly in his cell, with the look of a person who was ready to confront his enemy in combat. "Step away from Miss Frost if you want to live."

"Aww, how sweet," Esme remarked. "Sit back down and be a good boy, Eddy. You might've noticed that you're in no position to bargain with us right now."

Quentin grinned and slowly brought the open end of the wire toward my diamond body again. I prepared myself for the pain, hoping I could begin to tune it out so some extent. But before the end of the wire made contact, it suddenly bent backwards and attached itself to Quentin's neck. It sent electricity through his body and ejected him into the air, until his back slammed against the stone wall behind him with the impact of a cannonball.

I turned to see Eddy standing with his eyes focused on the end of the wire that had just jumped at Quentin's neck. Those metal bars were truly nothing to him, there was no denying his statement by then. He telekinetically held the end of the wire within an inch of Esme's face.

"Bishop! Tessa! Do something now!" Esme commanded the two mutant investigators, but they were beginning to return to their senses. I returned to skin form and telepathically blocked Esme's voice from them.

"How did this happen?" Lucas questioned as he unlocked me and placed the restraints back onto Esme's wrists.

"Just a day in a life among telepaths, dear," I answered Bishop.

"What's wrong with you two?! I meant do something to help me! Now!" Esme yelled at Bishop and Tessa.

"They can't hear you, Esme," I said calmly. "Stop yelling, you'll lose your voice."

"What do you mean they can't hear me?!" Esme became increasingly frustrated. "Bishop! Tessa! Lock Miss Frost back in the cell!"

"It's not that difficult to understand, poor girl," I patted Esme on the head. "See, Quentin is an Omega level telepath and you're not. He can control Bishop and Tessa easily, but you can't, certainly not by yourself at least. But besides all that, I just made you a mute to them, so don't bother trying to talk to them now. They really can't hear you, little girl."

  
  
In the evening, I sat next to Sophie's bed in the emergency room. She laid unconscious, but she looked serenely pure and peaceful in my eyes. I held her hand and reflected on all of the events leading up to that moment. Esme ultimately gave me an opportunity to confront my inner demons, but Sophie reminded me of a long lost innocence I once knew. Even if only for a brief moment, I actually considered that the little girl who attended the Snow Valley School -- the one who studied under Ian Kendall so many years ago -- might still exist somewhere deep within me.

"Miss Frost?" John Doe stepped nervously into the room, effectively pulling me out of my reflective mental state.

"Yes, John. What is it, dear?" I responded in a softer tone than he was accustomed to.

"Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. But there's a man from New York requesting a video conference with you over an encrypted connection."

"Who is he?"

"He didn't identify himself to me, but he said you would know him," John shrugged. "He mentioned something about a joint business venture..."

  
  
**End of Part 6**


End file.
